Eärendilyon
by crstories
Summary: One day an Elf-maid arrives in Lannisport. (A lot of original storyline, but when it is canon, I'll try to stick to canon)
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1: JAIME I**

**Lannisport, 278 AC**

"Jaime! Jaime! What is happening there?"

Twelve-year-old Jaime Lannister looked down at his little brother, who was twitching at his tunic and staring at him expectantly, then again toward the harbor, where some confusion had arisen.

"I don't know," Jaime shrugged disparagingly. "Some clash, that's all."

He had never been particularly interested in silly quarrels of fisherfolk, or mariners, and ever since he had become a squire at Crakehall, he hadn't been interested in such things at all. However, when he saw that Tyrion was still boring his mismatched eyes into him almost pleadingly, he said with a sigh, "Good then, we will see."

Straightening up proudly, Jaime took his brother's hand and, as fast as Tyrion was able to keep up, they walked down the street, toward the harbor.

Jaime had not expected at all what they would sight around the corner, once they would pass the high port buildings and come onto the wharf.

"Jaime, can you see?" Tyrion's eyes became round like two two-coloured moons, and he almost jumped in amazement. Other time Jaime would have laughed, just like he often did, amused by his brother's overly sincere excitement, now, however, he felt as his own eyes widen.

Above the heads of many mariners, swearing and stinking of fish, whose cries, full of some unusual animation, he and Tyrion had heard before, Jaime saw a ship.

In his, still short, life, he had seen many ships. Some of them could have been beautiful in the eyes of the others - his uncle Gerion had admired them, and so had Tyrion, yet was there really anything large and great that his five-year-old brother didn't admire? Jaime, if he was sensitive to any beauty, it was the beauty of Cersei and the beauty of swords. Every other beauty he considered useless, also the beauty of ships.

Now, however, Jaime saw the fairest of ships, and he could only think it was beautiful. It seemed whiter than gulls circling with yammering above the wharf, and beamed so stupendously like possibly not even Brightroar of Valyrian steel could have shined. Jaime had never seen Brightroar, not even a drawing of it, yet ever since uncle Gerion had once told him its story, this lost sword of his house in Jaime's imagination was greater than any jewel.

Docked in the haven, the ship floated on the dirty waves of the harbor so subtly and lightly, as if not touching them at all - it reminded Jaime of an awesome swan ready to take to the air, out of some silly children tales which had always amused and bored him. However, now those ridiculous tales, for whatever reason, seemed incredibly real to Jaime, and for a moment he stood as if bewitched, not able to take his eyes off of the shining ship.

He awoke when he heard that someone from the crowd calls to him.

"Young lord Jaime!"

Jaime turned his gaze to a place from whence the voice came, and in a man figure walking toward him he recognized Jorin, one of his father's port officials, whom uncle Gerion hated and called an old, filthy swine.

Jorin bowed to him, then he took a short, unsympathetic look at Tyrion. Frightened Tyrion immediately hid behind his brother, and Jaime felt as he clung to his leg with all his strength. That was enough for Jaime to regain the balance, and the pride of a Lannister.

"What is it?" he asked, raising his brow. "What is going on here?"

Suddenly, Jorin seemed confused, and he nervously moved his hand over his fat belly. "Master Jaime, maybe your father, or uncle is in the town?"

"My father is in King's Landing, and he'll return to Casterly Rock no sooner than a fortnight. For uncle Gerion, for whom, I suppose, you ask, he is in Lannisport, now busy with important matters, though."

"You've come here alone, then? You shouldn't have come to the harbor with no guard, young lord..."

Jorin smiled. He presumably had good intentions, yet his crooked, indulgent smile made Jaime's blood boil. Seven hells, he wasn't a child anymore! Jaime straightened up, possibly a little too abruptly, whilst trying to delicately loose his legging, which Tyrion was still clutching to.

"I can defend myself," he almost barked.

Jorin didn't care much about Jaime's anger, but when he peeked at the awesome ship, the smile disappeared from his face. Once again he moved his hand over his belly, clearly restless.

"What's this ship?" asked Jaime. "Whose pennon is that - I have never seen it before?"

Jorin winced. Suddenly, he seemed almost terrified.

"Lord Jaime... That's why I asked for your uncle... It's a really odd thing..."

"What's this ship?" Jaime repeated his question, struggling to make his voice sound powerful, even though, for whatever reason, his heart began to beat irritatingly fast. "Where does it come from?"

Jorin hesitated before he answered:

"Well... We don't know that, my lord..."

"What does it me - _you don't know_?"

"Last night, as you surely know, there was a huge storm on the sea... It's almost impossible... It's _utterly_ impossible any ship could have outlasted such a storm and arrived in Lannisport intact. And..." Jorin stuttered, swallowing loudly and looked at Jaime. "And Gerwyn, who did duties in the morning and was responsible for letting ships in, claims that the ship.. That it... Came out of the sea..."

Jaime watched Jorin's face until he thought, with astonishment, that Jorin believes in what he is saying. He once again adjusted the legging, at the same time glancing down at Tyrion, who started shifting anxiously, clearly not able to decide what was stronger in him - curiosity or fear.

"What a raving!" Jaime laughed at last. "I'm telling uncle you recruit some drunken, mad fools to work in the harbor!"

"I've thought the same, master Jaime - that Gerwyn talks gibberish, until... Until I have seen _her_..."

"Her?" asked Jaime, raising his brow and smiling mockingly, still trying to treat all of this as some, not the best, joke.

"A woman who came by that ship," said Jorin. "A witch."

"Came by that ship?" Jaime repeated after Jorin. "Alone?"

Meanwhile, he once again took a look at the vessel - it was smaller than the Lannisport trading cogs adjoining it, yet still seemed far too big to be steered by one person. Therefore, when Jorin nodded, Jaime's patience dried up.

"Enough of that!" He clenched his hand around the hilt of his sword. "Come Tyrion!"

He gripped his brother's hand, then pulled him toward the vessel. Frightened Jorin immediately followed them and grabbed Jaime's shoulder.

"Lord Jaime, wait! We'd better search for lord Gerion... You haven't seen that woman, young master, she's goin' to bewitch you like Gerwyn!"

Anger glittered in Jaime's eyes.

"I am a son of Tywin Lannister, soon to be a knight! Do not tell me what to do!" he snapped, then again rushed in a direction of the ship. This time Jorin didn't stop him, however, he heard Tyrion's voice behind his back:

"Jaime, wait for me!"

Jaime turned around, berating himself inwardly that he had forgotten about him.

"I'm sorry, Tyrion," he said with a sigh.

But Tyrion wasn't angry at him at all. When he waddled to his brother, his eyes were rather burning of excitement.

"Do you really want to come onto that ship, Jaime?"

"I..." Jaime hesitated for a moment, but he soon got hold of himself. In Tyrion's gaze, as usually full of admiration for the older brother, Jaime saw his own dreamed vision of himself - a knight who fears nothing, certainly not vessels, no matter how shining they would be.

"Yes, I do. An unknown ship has come to our port, and, _for unknown reasons_, father's officials are not able to learn what's the purpose of its arrival, you've heard. Uncle Gerion is busy, we must check it ourselves."

"And what if a witch is truly there?" asked reasonably Tyrion.

What if a witch is truly there? Jaime laughed, trying to drown out the hastened beating of his heart, and said only:

"Don't be afraid, you know I'll defend you if needed."

"I'm not afraid at all!" said Tyrion, and this time Jaime smiled to himself of sincere amusement. Of course, Tyrion might have feared their father, Cersei and loath looks of almost whole Westeros, but at a thought of meeting a dragon he would have jumped in happiness. Did a witch on a shining ship, defeating stormy waves on her own, differ much from a dragon?

Jaime looked up the broadside of the ship, however, he didn't see anyone on the deck, and the gangplank was dropped onto the wharf. Therefore, he picked Tyrion up and climbed onto the ship.

"Good morrow!" he said, putting his brother on the deck and looking around. "Is anyone there?"

He sighted no one, and didn't hear anything except the quiet sough of the harbor waves and the murmur of the chatter coming from the wharf, thus he almost jumped of astonishment when right behind his back a soft, feminine voice spoke:

"_Aur vaer! _*"

Jaime immediately turned, and his eyes widened another time this day. He almost didn't feel as Tyrion again fled behind his leg - this was the end of Tyrion's courage, yet Jaime couldn't blame him, for he himself would have gladly run as far as possible from the deck of that vessel now.

In front of him stood a young woman, clad in fair, manly robes, and over her shoulders a cloak was thrown, likely to protect her from the sea winds. Her face and the dark brown, almost black, hair glistened in the shine of the morrow's sun a thousandfold stronger than the ship they were standing on.

She was the most beautiful woman Jaime had ever seen.

She was more beautiful than Cersei.

_"Goheno nin... Ú-gosto nin!"_ she continued, however, she soon realized Jaime doesn't understand her, for she smiled slightly, and said in the Common Tongue, with a foreign accent, though:

"Forgive me, I did not wish to frighten you!"

She still carefully watched Jaime's face, possibly trying to find out if he had understood her this time. Jaime nodded nervously, sensing his cheeks get hot under her unbearably piercing gaze. He moved his eyes from her face to the embroidery adorning the cloak she wore, however, he soon became annoyed with the strange feeling of embarrassment that woman was causing him.

For a moment, it seemed to Jaime that she tried to read something out of his thoughts, it was impossible, though.

"You haven't frightened me, my lady," he lied, straightening up and looking up again. "I'm Jaime Lannister, a son of Tywin Lannister, the ruler of this haven. I am here to ask you, my lady, what has brought you to Lannisport? Who are you and where are come from?"

"Lannisport?" the woman looked questioningly at Jaime, but not waiting for an answer, she continued to speak:

"I am glad to meet you, young Jaime. I am Mŷlantil of Mithlond."

She must have seen incomprehension on Jaime's face, as she smiled with some amusement and added:

"Of the Grey Havens."

However, when she realized Jaime still didn't know what place she meant, she clearly got surprised.

"Have you never heard of the Grey Havens?" she asked.

Although Jaime's heart was hammering all the time, and he still was almost numb of fear accompanying a meeting with that woman, her careless joyfulness combined with a strange superiority needled him.

"I haven't heard, my lady," he snapped. "There's no such port in Westeros, and I am trained to be a knight, not a mariner - I don't know every haven in Essos."

"There's no such port in Essos too," suddenly said Tyrion in his all-knowing tone which often amused Jaime. Now, however, Jaime wasn't in a mood to laugh at all. When he saw that Mŷlantil looked down at his brother, his hand wandered to the sword hilt.

"That is..." Tyrion stuttered when he realized he had brought attention to himself, and immediately looked down at his boots.

"Uncle Gerion never mentioned it," he finished almost unhearably.

Mŷlantil smiled, and crouching down before Tyrion, she raised his chin, forcing him to look at her.

"Forgive me I did not greet you sooner, _eilianon didthen_. What is your name?"

Tyrion's eyes searched for help in Jaime, possibly trying to understand how Mŷlantil had called him and judge her intentions toward him. Jaime shrugged - he too had no idea.

"T- Tyrion," Tyrion mumbled at last.

"My brother," added Jaime just in case, still gripping his sword tightly.

For a while, Mŷlantil watched Tyrion with her piercing gaze, long enough to cause Jaime shift from the toes to the heels.

"It is a great joy to meet you, little Tyrion," she finally said, and to Jaime's astonishment, Tyrion gave her one of the widest smiles Jaime had ever seen on his face.

"You are not Gondorians, are you?" Mŷlantil asked, moving her gaze from Tyrion to Jaime. Jaime raised his brow.

"Possibly not, whoever Gondorians are," he said almost jokingly. Finally, he felt a little more confident in that woman's presence, even if his heart still didn't want to calm down.

Mŷlantil rose to her feet, and, with the steps so light as if, likewise seagulls, she soared in the air raised by gusts of wind, she walked to the stern, turning her eyes toward the Sunset Sea.

"Since the beginning I have known it cannot be Gondor," she spoke - more to herself, once again starting to use her own language Jaime wasn't able to understand. _"Reviannen an Linhir, then the storm came..."_

Jaime wondered how truly beautiful she was when she turned her head back to him. Her vivid eyes, not fully blue, not fully green, glittered like precious stones. Once again it seemed to him that by some magical way he and Tyrion had been brought into some children tale, wonderful and unreasonable.

"You are not the Haradrim too, and I do not feel that the shadow of the Evil has already fallen upon you. Who are you, then?" she asked with some joyful amazement in her voice.

* * *

* Sindarin:

Aur vaer - Good day to you

Goheno nin - Ú-gosto nin - Forgive, I did not want to frighten you

Reviannen an Linhir - I sailed to Linhir

eilianon didthen - little son of a rainbow


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2: GERION I**

Gerion rolled his eyes, exasperated, when the Wharf Warden Jorin went in the scriptorium of the port counting-house and stood beside him.

"What is it? Just make it quick!" he barked.

Jorin, a _trusted _official of Tywin, what meant Gerion himself would have never offered him a position he now held if only anyone had considered his viewpoint in this matter, was likely the most hated by him dweller of Lannisport.

However, possibly for some petty reason, Jorin had insisted to see him that morrow - _of all morrows - _during which he had to watch over the loading of goods onto the vessels and letting the trading ships out of the port. Gerion detested this job, particularly when, because of the bloody storm, the transport was late and the mariners nervous, thus he already was annoyed enough, and needed not to meet that fat fool to make his mood even worse.

"Lord Lannister," Jorin mumbled. "At dawn... At dawn, a ship has come to the seashore..."

Gerion put the seal of the House Lannister on a piece of parchment that confirmed the amount of fabrics they sent to King's Landing, then looked at Jorin, raising his brows.

"After the storm?" he said as he took another parchment from the young scribe, who was listening to them with increasing curiosity. "Fortune to be envied. What am I to do with this? Has the ship brought wretched goods? A toll hasn't been paid?"

Jorin swallowed loudly and moved his hand over his fat belly. Gerion stopped reading what the scribe had written on the parchment, and started to watch the Wharf Warden with sudden interest. Jorin was always greatly nervous in his presence, but today he looked like he was soon to partake in a trial by combat.

"Been paid..." Jorin stuttered. "Been paid, even in gold... I mean... _She _paid, but-"

"She?"

"Yes... Lord Gerion, please, let me finish!" Jorin said when he saw that Gerion again opened his mouth to speak.

Gerion agreed with a reluctant nod. Then the Wharf Warden told him about a glittering ship that had floated out of the depths of the sea, and had been steered by a goddess with eyes looking like turquoise stones.

Gerion had already scoffed at him as Jorin asked:

"We... We still don't know where the ship comes from... Have you ever seen a pennon with a swan in the midst of two white trees, m'lord?"

Gerion had to admit he hadn't, he still was rather exasperated than interested in the whole matter, though.

"No. Perhaps this ship comes from one of those little Essos havens no one has ever coped to count. I have no idea what it may be doing here, _yet, _is it not you who's paid by my dear brother to look after all ships' comings in and out? As far as I'm familiar with the port rules, unknown ships are not let into the port, but tied up by the shore until they are... Well... Known?" he mocked.

"But that woman..."

Gerion rolled his eyes again.

"I don't care for some fantasies, no matter - Gerwyn's or yours! I guess you both got drunk as hells in the tavern last night, not the first time, after all, and still haven't sobered up. Just get to know what's that ship, as you've already let it in. _Only then _come to me. And now, get out of my face!"

"But..."

"Anything else?"

If Jorin had been frightened before, now he almost quivered in fear.

"But... But your nephew... I mean young lord Jaime... He has already come onto that ship... I mean... He wanted to, and I suppose he did..."

"What?!"

Gerion let go of the parchment he held, and started to walk in a hurry in a direction of the door of the scriptorium. Jorin ran after him, and Gerion yelled at him to explain how did it,and _who did let it, _happen that Jaime had taken even a step toward this ship. Then the Wharf Warden told him about his meeting with young Lannisters moments before.

"Lord Gerion... I... I've had no choice... I _cannot _order master Jaime... I..." Jorin stuttered.

Gerion looked at him anger and finally snapped:

"Enough! Just shut up already!"

"I assure you," he said too, much quieter this time, leaning to Jorin. "If _anything _happens to _either _of my nephews because of that, no matter how my brother will punish you, _I _shall be the first to make sure that never again you'll find any joy while sarding those whores of yours. Have you understood?"

Damned, foolish Jorin!

Foolish, foolish Jaime! Had he truly not learned any maritime laws from him? Getting on a ship without a permission of a ship commander may easily be treated as an intrusion, even a kind of port thievery, no matter how lordling-like Jaime did look. Who knew what a crew of this ridiculously mysterious vessel would do about it.

Fortunately, Jorin hadn't enough courage to follow him further. Gerion took two guards with himself, then they left the building of the counting-house and quickly walked down toward the wharf, whereon the port folk was quarreling fiercely about something.

Gerion worked his way through the crowd, and his eyes began to search for a ship which Jorin had spoken about. It wasn't hard to find - it was indeed amazing, and, astonishingly, Jorin had been right when he had said it didn't resemble any vessel that had arrived in the Lannisport harbor ever before.

However, Gerion could hardly think about it now. He sighed with relief as his gaze found Jaime on the ship's deck, and it didn't seem anything worrying was going on there.

"What's the meaning of this?" Gerion barked at the crowd. "Have you got nothing to do? Back to work, now! There must be room for the loading on the wharf!"

"But _that _ship-"

"Is no concern of yours! Have you never seen a ship before?" he asked mockingly.

The white ship was genuinely strange, even for Gerion himself, yet bringing attention of the whole Lannisport's folk to it would do nothing good for sure. Thus, Gerion ordered his guards to keep peace on the wharf and wait there for him, then he walked alone closer to the vessel.

He slowed his pace for a moment to watch the ship more carefully.

"Seven bloody hells!" he whispered to himself when he stood the nearest to the broadside he was able to, and held out his hand, trying to reach the vessel's timbers. It had to be birchwood, the finest he had ever seen, though, and planed in a way that made it shine like white gold.

However, Gerion took away his hand and moved it to his belt to check if the knife was in its sheath as he suddenly remembered the reason why he had come here, then quickly climbed up the gangplank.

"Uncle Gerion!" Tyrion greeted him. Gerion hushed him with his hand, his gaze, though, watched his little nephew for a moment. Tyrion's mismatched eyes were shining, his cheeks were flushed, and he seemed far too cheerful in a presence of a stranger to not make Gerion mistrustful.

He frowned, then looked at a young woman who stood in front of him. He bowed slightly and said with a little smile:

"Good day to you, my lady! I'm Gerion Lannister, the Master of this Harbor, and I'm glad to I can greet you in Lannisport, what, as I can see, my nephews have already done before me."

Gerion sent Jaime, as he hoped, a scolding look, and smiled even wider to the woman. "I have to ask you, though, for a reason of your arrival, that - won't you agree, my lady - is a little unexpected."

While the woman was explaining who she was and where she came from, Gerion studied her closely. She was indeed astonishingly beautiful, even in comparison to some Essos maids that Gerion had once found stunning. In some wondrous way, she seemed bonded with wildlife, like a shining phantom melting in the air, the wind, or the haven waves.

Gerion wasn't surprised anymore the simple port folk saw a goddess in her. If he himself believed in any gods, he could have easily imagined one of them to be similar to her.

"You claim you've sailed alone, then? Tell me, my lady, _how _is it possible that a young woman, almost still a girl, coped not with last night's storm, but also with such a long journey?" Gerion asked with a smirk when Lady Mŷlantil had finished her story.

The woman laughed, unexpectedly amused by his question, then she said:

"Have you not recognize I am not a mortal woman, but an Elf? I may be young in the timeline of the Eldar, yet I am still almost three hundred years older than you, lord Gerion."

She must have noticed their utter dumbness, for the smile disappeared from her face, and her eyes widened in astonishment.

"Have you never heard of Elves as well?"

Gerion grunted nervously.

"Well... No, we haven't," he said. He decided to leave this matter for now, though, to preserve the remnants of common sense. "Then... If I've understood you aright, lady Mŷlantil, you have come here by chance. What do you intend to do now, then?"

" I do not know, my lord," lady Mŷlantil admitted.

She was thinking deeply for a while, then she said:

"I still can hardly believe there is a land on Arda, far from mine, of which I have not heard even in the oldest tales... Perhaps, though it seems impossible, if I could compare my maps to yours, they would give me some answer?"

A slight wince crossed Gerion's face. He wouldn't have wagered a single coin on what this woman was saying, but she seemed sincerely kind, in a way he had rarely experienced in his earlier life. That was enough reason to keep her as far as possible from the den of lions in Casterly Rock, at the best to forthwith ship her vessel off, back to the Green, Grey, or whatever called Havens which she claimed she came from.

Gerion didn't manage to say anything to prevent a possible forthcoming mishap, though, for Tyrion spoke first:

"Uncle Gerion has plenty of old maps in Casterly Rock, for he'll gladly show you all of them, won't you, Uncle?"

Tyrion's gaze was pleading as he raised his eyes at his uncle, and Gerion couldn't blame him for the unreasonable invitation he had just offered Mŷlantil, not only because Tyrion was only a child, but also because it was unavoidable he would have wholeheartedly given himelf to almost anyone who would treat him with open kindness, above all to a woman at the same time could sate his yearning for wondrous stories of unknown lands and creatures.

Gerion swore inwardly. Tyrion was another reason they should have never befriended her, he would get attached to her far too quickly.

Thus, Gerion fought an urge to stab Jaime with his knife when he heard him saying, clearly not making any effort to think twice about it:

"I've never had a great liking for sticking amid old scrolls, _any _scrolls, truth to be told, but I believe we could do some searching in the Rock's library. Uncle Gerion once said there was a map in the library dating back to the times of the first Andal kings, didn't you, Uncle?"

Won't you, Uncle? Didn't you, Uncle? When he had been dismissed from the position of a jolly rebound of their rigid father and become Gerion, the Master of Legendary Parchments, the First of His Name?

Gerion smiled crookedly to himself at his own poor jape, yet he was hardly in mood to think of a better one. He felt Mŷlantil's piercing gaze upon himself.

"I would gladly take a look at these maps," she said, "if only I am not too much of a burden to you, lord Gerion."

"You won't be, my lady," Gerion lied, forcing himself to smile. "Have I understood aright, the sons of my brother, the lord of Casterly Rock have already invited you to come with us to the castle, why should I stand against their will? I'll do my best to help you in your search, and share my knowledge with you, have I _truly_ had _any_, yet..." he hesitated, closing his eyes for a moment, struggling to find good words for what he wanted to say.

"If I could ask you for something, or give you some counsel, though, my lady... Bearing in mind the, well... _awkwardness_ of the state of affairs we've all found ourselves in... Could you possibly avoid telling anyone your true origins and... age, at least until we understand, if only a little better, what... what has exactly happened?"

Mŷlantil gave a pensive nod.

"I could. What should I be saying?"

"Leave it to me. I shall present you," _somehow_, Gerion mocked himself inwardly, "at the court. And in the city... Everyone will possibly be to frightened to ask," he smirked, yet he added after a moment:

"Still, it will be better if I lead you to and hide you in the inn until I'm done with the loading matters. Luckily, at this time of a day almost no one is there, and given a few coins, the host will keep his mouth shut, not caring who you truly are, and let you wait in the kitchens..."

Suddenly, Gerion thought of how little courtesy his offer was. She was a lady after all, or at least she _seemed_ to be, considering the way she spoke and moved, and this incredible pride that so vividly beamed out of her.

He sent Mŷlantil an apologetic, a little embarrassed look.

"I do hope you don't mind, my lady... Jaime and Tyrion are going to keep you company... Just, as I said, bearing in mind-"

"The awkwardness, I have understood," Mŷlantil seemed amused again, and Gerion couldn't help the feeling that in some way, all the while she keeps treating him like a little child, not much older than Tyrion. It was greatly annoying, however, it didn't seem he could do anything about it now.

"I do not mind," she also said.

"Wonderful," he tried to make it sound as little drily as possible. "Then, my least question would be: can you ride horseback, lady Mŷlantil?"

They settled she could, and some time later, when all four of them had left Lannisport behind their backs, and were going a highroad leading to the Lannisters' fortress in Casterly Rock, Gerion could see she was able to do it very well.

Much to his earlier astonishment, Mŷlantil hadn't wanted her horse to be saddled, so she rode like that now, as it seemed, without any effort, some yards ahead of them, and her careful gaze was moving thwart the partially stony, partially covered with stretches of wild grasses hills that rose afar. Gerion looked at those hills too. Although Mŷlantil's eyes seemed to be soaking in every smallest piece of that sight, he himself had no idea what she may have seen there, apart from flickers of the noon sun's rays that were bouncing off the rocks in the same way as off her long, dark hair.

She had taken off the hood, Gerion noticed. He had asked her to put it on her head before, when he had thought that far too many of the Lannisport men had already been drooling over her, and that it surely would not bring any good (as if her presence itself wouldn't have been enough difficulty). Now, however, it forsooth didn't matter anymore, for there was little chance they would meet anyone on that part of the highroad, so close to the Rock, with the exception of its residents, who would, alas, see Mŷlantil anyway.

Taking the opportunity the woman couldn't hear him, Gerion glanced at Jaime and hissed at him drily:

"I hope you're pleased, my lordling!"

Jaime raised his brow.

"What do you mean, uncle?"

Gerion rolled his eyes.

"What do you think you've done, Jaime? Taking _her_ to Casterly Rock is the most stupid thing you could've thought of! Do you know what will be once your father sees we've brought - _to his castle_ \- a girl who claims that is a few hundred years old and comes from a land of which no one of us has ever heard?"

"Father is not in Casterly Rock," Jaime said carelessly, and Gerion's blood boiled.

"He will soon return! I _assure_ you he's going to be _utterly delighted_, finding out I allowed some wode woman, who speaks like some damned inspired soothsayer, as your company!" he scoffed.

"She is not a woman," Tyrion broke in suddenly. He sat in the saddle together with Jaime, who held him firmly between his arms and legs, and listened to them with attention. "She is an Elf."

"Be quiet, Tyrion, I'm talking to your brother!"

"Uncle... Gerwyn says her ship _came out of the sea_," said Jaime, a little unconfidently, and as if trying to confirm Tyrion's words.

Gerion's eyes almost widened in astonishment.

"Bloody hells, Jaime, what's going on with you? Since when you behave like Tyrion?" he sent his little newhew an apologetic glance, noticing a half hurt, half offended expression on Tyrion's face. "Gerwyn falls for a siren once a moon, do you really think it's wise to believe him? I don't..." Gerion tried to calm down and softened his voice a little. "I don't deny that she has _incredible_ lot of luck, and _impressive_ sailing skills, but it still doesn't mean she's three hundred years old, and lives in a land where ships jump out of the sea like dolphins... We should've sent her out of our port when we could!"

"So why have you not done it, Uncle?" asked cockily Jaime.

"Because I'm that foolish uncle who never says _no_ to you, even if it's highly required?" Gerion barked, not knowing if he was angrier at his nephews, or at himself. "Though, I still think we shouldn't let her into Casterly Rock..."

"No!" Tyrion whined, and his voice sounded as if he was about to cry soon. "Please, uncle Gerion, I so much want her to come with us, I've never wanted anything that much!"

Gerion shook his head, resigned. It was already an utterly lost cause, he knew that. Yet, at least he could tease Tyrion about it a little longer, what he couldn't refrain to do.

"Even a dragon? I will bring you one when you agree to send that lady away," he said jokingly.

"You wouldn't bring me a dragon at all, you're just saying so..." Tyrion thought about it reasonably. "And even if you do, I don't want a dragon anymore, I want her!"

"Are you sure? Think twice! I would certainly prefer a dragon," Gerion smirked. Maybe it would burn Tywin's ass, so that Gerion could easily throw both Jorin and Gerwyn far away from Lannisport for ever letting that bloody vessel into the haven.

"Uncle, please... Jaime?" Tyrion sobbed, and he tried to whirl in the saddle to look at his brother, searching for his help.

Gerion scolded himself inwardly.

"It's aright, Tyrion, I'm only joking," he said softly, heading his horse closer to his nephews, so that he was able to stroke Tyrion's hair. "I've invited lady Mŷlantil myself. I'm not going to turn her back now... Anyway, we'd better chase after her, so that she won't get lost... Or be blown out by some wind_ wave. _If she's so prone to appear _out of_ _nowhere_, it seems she may just as quickly disappear_ into nowhere_,_" _he mocked, throwing Jaime a look, then kicked his horse to trot.

Mŷlantil didn't even look at them when they reached her. With her eyes fixed somewhere far ahead, she was singing something in her own tongue. Of course, Gerion couldn't understand a word, yet the woman's clear pensiveness strangely mismatched the song that seemed jolly, even jocular.

"Would you care to share what was that song about, my lady?" Jaime asked when she finished, but instead of answering, she all of a sudden questioned Tyrion:

"Why would you ever want a dragon?"

Tyrion's eyes became round.

"How... How do you know..." he turned his head and quickly took a look above Jaime's shoulder, possibly trying to judge how far away from her they had been before. Gerion looked there as well, and, as he had supposed, it was much too far, so that she could have heard them. He frowned.

"You've _heard_ us?" Tyrion stared at her in amazement.

Mŷlantil chuckled quietly, then repeated her question:

"Why would you want a dragon? Dragons have never brought any good to Arda."

"Have you ever met one?" Tyrion's eyes now glittered in excitement.

"No," Mŷlantil smiled at him. "Not many of them have survived to our times, and the ones that have no more possess the strength their kind once had, for the old fire already weakened in them. Yet the tales say the first dragons were created thousands years ago by Morgoth himself, who gave them the worst of traits, and they have caused many deaths of both Elves and Men as the time passed by, led to falls of the greatest kingdoms."

Mŷlantil fell silent for a moment, then she sang the same song as before, but in the Common Tongue now:

**One elf-child fled**

**the dragon's head,**

**holding the glass in the hand**

**that the echo had made his brand**

**The child looked once,**

**he saw the sun,**

**but the echo kept quiet**

**and the dragon flied by it**

**The child looked twice,**

**he saw the star,**

**but the echo kept quiet**

**and the dragon flied by it**

**So he tried it the time that was last,**

**and he saw himself in the glass**

**Then the echo yelled**

**to the dragon's despair**.

Gerion smirked.

"Charming rhymes," he mocked. "I must admit, though, in your speech they sounded a little better."

Mŷlantil laughed, and Gerion wondered - not for the first time - how easily she seemed to change her moods - from deep thoughtfulness to almost careless cheerfulness.

"It is only a children song," she said. "Yet, my friend Glorfindel remembers that princess Idril Celebrindal used to sing this song to her little son Eärendil, and thereby she might have unknowingly foreseen Eärendil's flight during the fall of Gondolin, and his later fate among the stars... Some say the glass of the song is either the Elessar his mother gave him, or even the Silmaril itself," she was lost in her thoughts again for a while, but then she smiled and added:

"I do not think I believe in prophetic songs the way Glorfindel does, though. Songs are just songs, they may tell our past days, but hardly the forthcoming ones."

Mŷlantil fell silent again, and for a moment none of them spoke, only a few gulls which suddenly appeared far above their heads shrieked loudly.

"Tell us more about Eärendil," Tyrion finally pleaded. "And about Gondolin, and Sil..." he struggled to recall the name.

"Tyrion..." Gerion rolled his eyes, and Mŷlantil said:

"I will tell you later, _eilianon didthen_."

"And what... What are you calling me?" Tyrion mumbled unconfidently.

"Tyrion, enough for now!" said Gerion, because they had just gone around a cliff that had covered the sight on their left side, and only now they could see the bouldered hill of Casterly Rock. Gerion watched as Mŷlantil eyes slowly wandered over the rocky road that rose up amid the stones toward the gates, on which hundred of years before the two lions had been engraved. Afterward she looked higher, at the huge cliff, glowing golden in the sunlight, at the of which the castle stood.

Of course, Mŷlantil must have already seen the cliff, either from the ship, while she had been sailing into Lannisport, or from the port, however, Gerion had always thought the most amazing it looked from the place they now stood. He remembered, when had still been a boy, he had used to come here sometimes to gaze at the castle, and only at those times he had felt genuine pride of being a Lannister.

"Well... Welcome to Casterly Rock, lady Mŷlantil," he said. For whatever reason, he expected Mŷlantil to be as enchanted by the sight as he himself had once been, but her eyes just glittered in amusement:

"I am Mŷlantil, I have told you before."

Yes, she indeed had already told it to Gerion. As he had gone out of the inn, she had run after him and had grabbed his shoulder. Gerion had managed to notice that despite her general self-restraint, her moves were impetuous at times. Perhaps it indicated her youth, no matter how old she truly was, perhaps her inner liveliness, that only sometimes showed. Perhaps both.

"Gerion, wait!" she had said.

Gerion had smirked to himself. He had intended to ask Mŷlantil jokingly what happened that he, all of sudden, had lost his "lord" title. However, when he had looked at the girl, he suddenly hadn't been able to utter a word, for at that moment her eyes had glittered like true jewels, and in her strange, stupendous beauty she had seemed almost terrifying.

_Who the hells she is?, _Gerion had wondered.

"Remember it may all be only a dream, perhaps yours, perhaps mine, that will sail away along with a new morrow like sometimes dark clouds float off of the sky above the seas, steered by Ulmo's gentle thoughts."

Gerion had had no idea what he could have answered at such words. He had hidden his awkwardness behind another smirk and had said:

"It may all be, my lady."

_It had better be._

"My name is Mŷlantil," she had said then.

Gerion had just nodded dumbly, then he had turned to walk away. His eyes had unknowingly wandered to the sky, which had been so clean at that moment.

Gerion had sworn inwardly.

It had better all be a dream.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3: TYRION I**

Tyrion couldn't fall asleep this eventide. Truth to be told, there was nothing uncommon about that, for sleep usually came with difficulty to the little Lannister. Tyrion didn't know why, but he always felt cold in his too big four-poster bed, no matter how tightly he covered himself with blankets and curled up into a ball, hugging pillows. Sometimes he thought it was just his body, that, as maesters and men said, was so wrongly made, still foolishly remembered the coolness of winter during which, as Jaime had once told him, he had been born. Perhaps one day it would at last forget, Tyrion hoped.

At other times, however, he doubted that this was a true reason, for he felt not only coldness, but also forlornness, which was even worse. Tyrion often wanted to ask his nursemaid, who would come to his bed chamber by dusk to help him unclothe and keep him clean, to sit at the edge of his bed and stay with him just a little longer. Yet, although the maid would always be almost overly courteous, she never smiled, and did everything in such a hurry that before Tyrion could mustered up enough courage to say anything, the end of the servant's gown would dissappear behind the door, which would close with a quiet roar. Then Tyrion was alone again, listening in dead silence of the chamber to the rush of sea waves, bouncing off of the cliff.

This eventide was different, though, for _this eventide _Tyrion's heart beat too feverishly, so that he could have been cold, and his mind was too occupied to remember he was alone. And, strangely, he _didn't _feel lonely, because somewhere amid the many halls, chambers and rooms of Casterly Rock Mŷlantil now was, all beautiful, wondrous and so, so kind. They had found her, only they knew who she truly was, and she was theirs.

Uncle Gerion's, Jaime's and _his._

Tyrion could hardly believe his luck. If he hadn't been so afraid Mŷlantil would finally get angry at him for disturbing her too much, he would have jumped out of his bed and walked around the castle as fast as he could to find her - to check again if she indeed was real, and to spend more time with her than he had been allowed earlier this day.

Uncle Gerion had introduced the Elf-maid as a seller of writing skins, a daughter of a still unknown, but deft parchment craftsman, who could have offered his handiwork to the Rock's scriptoria. Tyrion thought Uncle had made up this lie when, back in the inn, Mŷlantil had showed them a map of her land and seen that she had accidentally taken a few blank parchment scrolls along with the map. Uncle Gerion had studied the scrolls with attention and admiration, and had said the art of making them resembled not any of those known in Westeros, and likely even in Essos.

However, uncle Gerion's words hadn't seemed to be convincing enough, especially for aunt Genna.

"What have you come up with this time? You've brought to the court some lover or whore of yours?" she hissed at Uncle when she had thought that Mŷlantil couldn't hear her anymore.

"She doesn't look like a whore, though, she is... Well, _very _beautiful and full of charm, but subtle... And so _outlandish_!" she added after a moment, watching carefully the figure of the Elf-lady, who had stood at the second end of the castle corridor and studied the wall paintings.

"She is not a whore!" had snapped uncle Gerion. "I have no taste for whoring, you know that! And she isn't my lover as well!"

Aunt Genna had snorted mockingly. "Don't make me laugh, Gerion! You can't possibly think I'm going to believe she is a pedler."

For a moment, uncle Gerion had seemed confused, but then he had said defiantly:

"Even if she would've been my lover, that's none of your business! I am too a lord of Casterly Rock, and I may bring whoever I want to my chambers."

"Well... I can't wait to see what Tywin will do once he hears about it," aunt Genna had pursed her lips.

"What will he do?" had scoffed uncle Gerion. "Pinch my ear and scold his _sweet little brother_? I'm not a whipping boy, no matter - Tywin's or yours, I've never been. I know my rights at the court."

That was how their discussion had ended, and Tyrion had sighed with relief. Aunt Genna might have thought what she wanted about Mŷlantil, it hadn't seemed, however, she, or anyone else, was going to throw her away from Casterly Rock, at least not until Father would return.

Later that day, Tyrion had been allowed to eat the dinner along with Mŷlantil and uncle Gerion in Uncle's solar. Shortly afterwards, though, to Tyrion's disappointment, Uncle had dismissed him together with the servant Jowell, for he had wished to speak alone with the Elf-lady.

However, Tyrion had noticed that coming out of the solar, Jowell hadn't closed the door tightly. Thus, as soon as the servant had left him alone in his own chamber, he had slipped out of it and waddled through the castle corridors back to the solar's door.

It still hadn't been fully closed, he had rejoiced, and had opened them quietly a little wider, so he could see, or hear anything.

"Do Elves drink wine?" uncle Gerion had asked jokingly.

"They do," Mŷlantil had answered, smiling.

Uncle had filled two cups, and had given one of them to the Elf-maid. The smile had then disappeared from his face, and he had looked at Mŷlantil with slight embarrassment.

"I suppose you've heard what I spoke of with my sister?"

When she had nodded, uncle Gerion had continued, nervously running his hand through his fair hair:

"You shouldn't have, and I should have defended your good name far better, for what I beg your forgiveness... I've just thought - although it _clearly_ goes _far_ beyond the court code, and I hope I haven't wholly offended you by this - foolish as it sounds, it's kind of a _good_ thing you've become my lover in the others' eyes. You see... They are all quite used to my... _antics_ here, so... thereby we may avoid many uncomfortable questions and be left in peace, at least for some time... Still, please, forgive me for that!"

Mŷlantil had smiled again. "It is forgiven."

She had seemed to be thinking deeply about something for a while, then she had asked:

"I just would want to ask... I am just curious... Who is a whore?"

Uncle Gerion had choked on his wine at this question, and his eyes had widened in astonishment.

"You don't know who a whore is?

"No, I do not know. It is not I know nothing about Men customs... I know who a lover is, I know Men sometimes do have lovers in my land too, but I have heard nothing of whores. I think I have never even heard that name... So, who is she?" the Elf-lady had repeated her question, staring at Uncle intensely.

Tyrion too hadn't understood this word, he hadn't had a chance to learn what it had meant, though. He had only seen as uncle Gerion had taken a plentiful sip from his cup before he had almost jumped in fear when had heard behind his back:

"Are you spying, little brother?"

Tyrion had turned immediately, and had seen Jaime, leaning against the wall in a careless manner, with a smirk on his face.

"Jaime!" Tyrion had whined quietly. "I've thought you were on the practice field..."

"I was," Jaime whispered back, clearly amused, "yet I somehow sensed interesting things could be going on here, and I too want to be aware of the news. Now, let me see as well!"

He had stood behind Tyrion, and they had both looked through the crack in the doorway.

"What for?" Mŷlantil had asked, and uncle Gerion had looked at her, slightly exasperated and slightly confused.

"What for - _what_?"

"What do they do this for?" she had explained, seemingly not sharing uncle Gerion's awkwardness.

Uncle had laughed nervously.

"You're asking me why men whore - presuming we still heed some courtesy rules, it's a little embarrassing question to answer, my lady."

Mŷlantil had smiled apologetically.

"I'm sorry, I did not want to embarrass you. Men are led by desires I sometimes do not understand. I never knew this one, I was just curious."

"You don't know desire of any kind?

Mŷlantil hadn't answered immediately. Her eyes had wandered thwart the solar's terrace toward the sea, which peaceful waves had shimmered yellowish. For a while, she had immersed in her thoughts, or mayhap in something she had been seeing, or had imagined she had been seeing, somewhere in the far west beyond the sea.

When she had looked back at uncle Gerion, she had chuckled almost bitterly, and her eyes had glittered fiercely.

"We know," she had slowly said. "We know it far too well, Gerion, yet our desire is different than yours, for you do not belong to Arda the way we do. Your desire is hasty, unsteady and greedy, as you always wish for more, and you never rest, for you believe your lifetime is never enough. We foster our desire, inure to it, and it burns us slowly inside until we become nothing more than ashes, but even then, we still cannot release ourselves from it."

Uncle Gerion had smirked. "You speak as if desire was always wrong."

"I do not think it is either wrong, or right," Mŷlantil had smiled slightly too. "Desire bore the greatest beauty. Also the greatest doom, though."

At that moment, Tyrion had unintentionally leaned too heavily against the door, making it creak quietly. Uncle Gerion had turned forthwith, hissing:

"Bloody hells, the door!"

Tyrion had only felt as Jaime had grabbed him with one of his quick, nimble moves, then they had found themselves in another corridor, far away from the door to Uncle's solar.

Now, as he lay in his bed, Tyrion thought about all of this, impatiently awaiting the forthcoming day, until the rush of waves at last lulled him into a troubled sleep.

The new morrow eventually came, and along with it, much to Tyrion's delight, uncle Gerion took Mŷlantil, Jaime and him to the Elder Library of Casterly Rock.

Never before Tyrion had been allowed to step in there, so his eyes were moving around in utter amazement. The library was a large circular hall, dimly lit by candles, thickly placed on the candlesticks, and by few poor sunrays, falling inside through three small windows. Books and scrolls seemed to be nearly everywhere, from the highest shelves to the floor, apart from the center of the hall, where the reading tables and the writing desks stood.

Uncle Gerion explained to the library keeper that they needed peace and were not to be disturbed, then ordered him to leave. The keeper glanced with astonishment at Mŷlantil, either surprised by the presence of a woman, or amazed by her fabulous appearance, however, he didn't dare to say anything against Uncle's will, and just agreed.

When the keeper came out of the library, uncle Gerion told them to wait, and he soon disappeared amid the shelves.

Jaime went further into the hall, looking around, astonishingly quite interested. Possibly he had never been in the Elder Library as well, Tyrion thought. Tyrion himself was curious too, yet far stronger was his urge to stay as close to the Elf-lady as he could, not only because, for whatever reason, it just felt so good to be with her, but also because it was better, just in case, to guard her, so that she didn't accidentally _disappear into nowhere,_ as uncle Gerion had warned.

However, when he was left alone with Mŷlantil, she didn't say anything for a while, as if not remembering he was there at all, her eyes simply wandering over the shelves. Hence, Tyrion's heart suddenly hastened in fear - she surely came here in uncle Gerion's and Jaime's company - not _his_, he started thinking, she wouldn't want to talk to him, he was just a burden, Cersei always said he was just a burden...

Tyrion closed his eyes tightly to not let the tears come - he didn't know what he should do or say, he just wished to hide, or Jaime to walk back to them.

Then, unexpectedly, he felt gentle fingers brushing a strand of hair from his forehead, and slowly moving down over his cheek. The sudden touch made Tyrion's whole body tense. If his heart had beaten fast before, it now hammered like mad.

"Tyrion, have anything happened?" Mŷlantil asked with concern. She took her hand away from his cheek, and he almost pleaded for more. He opened his eyes widely instead to see the Elf-maid crouching in front of him.

"No," he said quietly. "Nothing."

Mŷlantil smiled.

"You need to forgive me I did not call you back into the solar yesterday, _eilianon didthen nín._ I did not want to withstand your uncle."

Tyrion's eyes got even rounder. "Back? You knew I was there, behind the door?"

"You and Jaime - yes, I knew," Mŷlantil wondrous eyes glittered in amusement. "I have heard you."

"I did not tell you your story, either," she added after a moment. "Perhaps I will tell you today?"

"Of Eärendil?"

"Yes, if you only wish. It is a tale I have always liked the most, and it suits you."

In a wave of huge joyfulness and gratefulness, without thinking, Tyrion pressed himself between Mŷlantil's arms and hugged her chest tightly, snuggling his face into her neck. However, he soon remembered what he had done, so he quickly stepped back, and his frightened eyes immediately searched her face for any signs of anger. She seemed a little astonished, but not wroth, though, and she was smiling, still.

"I'm sorry," Tyrion mumbled shyly.

"You do not need to be," she simply said, and with a quick move, she suddenly took Tyrion up into her arms. He smiled in happiness, and wanted to say something, however, they then saw Jaime, walking back to them, whose earlier interest seemed to disappear a little.

"Where is uncle Gerion?" Jaime complained, wiping motes of dust off of his shoulder. "We could've better gone to see the old swords in the Hall of Heroes..."

Suddenly, Jaime's bored expression beamed, and his green eyes shined.

"Can you use a sword, lady Mŷlantil?" he asked.

"You may call me Mŷlantil, Jaime, at least when no one of the court hears us," the Elf-lady said. "Yes, I was taught to wield a sword, the art of archery too. Yet, fighting is not a path I have chosen. I only," she smirked, "build ships. That is what I can do best."

"Build ships? With your own hands?" Jaime's eyes got round, but Mŷlantil wasn't able to answer, for, all of sudden, they heard a loud crash somewhere amid the shelves.

Jaime ran toward the source of the unexpected sound, and Mŷlantil followed him, with Tyrion still in her arms. They saw two books that, for unknown reason, lay on the floor - they must have fallen off the shelf, and opened whilst that fall...

Jaime took one of the books in his hands.

"What the hells? The wind?" he asked, raising his brows in disbelief.

Mŷlantil shook her head.

"Here is no wind," she said, looking around carefully. "And even if there was, it would have had no strength to blow down these books."

"What has happened?" Tyrion heard uncle Gerion's voice behind his back.

He turned his head and saw his uncle, whose eyes immediately moved over Mŷlantil and him, then wandered to Jaime and the book he held.

"This library has lasted for hundred of years, Jaime. Do not tell me you're ruining it in less than a hourglass," Uncle smiled mockingly.

"I've done nothing," Jaime snapped. "The books just fell."

The smile disappeared from uncle Gerion's face, and he frowned, asking nervously:

"You haven't seen anyone?"

"No one is here apart from us," Mŷlantil said with a smile. "I would have easily heard anyone of your folk. You step loud as _Ennebyn*_."

Tyrion thought he needed to remember to ask Mŷlantil later what _Ennebyn_ meant, now, however, something else caught attention of all of them.

"What is it?" Mŷlantil pointed at a small, yellowish-white piece of something that lay under the shelves - a piece which had likely fallen out of one of the books on the floor. Jaime took it and showed them - it seemed to be a shred of clothing, old and dirty, and some sentence was written on it with a writing tool Tyrion could not recognize.

"It's charcoal," uncle Gerion answered Tyrion's inner doubt, amazed. "Someone wrote it charcoal."

"The letters are very unclear," Jaime winced slightly, yet he tried to read regardless of that:

**For my twofold beloved sister Fein to let her remember I did not rot here for naught, and that all has its cost.**

Then Jaime turned the shred - on the other side of it something was drawn, however, the drawing had smudged so much, that nothing could be read out of it, apart from few strokes and a short description:

_**Ezellithīr**_

"What does it mean, uncle?" Jaime asked. "What speech is it? Is it Old Valyrian?"

"I don't know what it means," answered uncle Gerion, taking the shred from Jaime and looking at it. "It's only one word, which I don't understand, it may or may not be Old Valyrian, it looks like it could be, but my knowledge of the language is far too little to judge it..."

"But who do you think could have written this? And when?" Tyrion asked impatiently.

Uncle Gerion laughed at that. "Tyrion, how can I know? This piece may have tens, or even hundreds of years, it's beyond imagination how many scribes, maesters, scholars, officials and other ones have walked among these shelves during all that time, and Gods know how many beloved sisters they might have had. It's just some piece, quaint, but means nothing now."

Tyrion still wasn't convinced, though, and looked at Mŷlantil.

"And what do you think about it, Mŷlantil?"

"Mŷlantil?" he asked again when he saw that the Elf-maid wasn't attentive to what they had been speaking of at all as she was staring at some point Tyrion couldn't recognize.

"_Tuilinn_," she whispered in her tongue, smiling widely. "Swallows."

"What are you speaking about?" asked uncle Gerion, frowning.

"Look there!" answered Mŷlantil, showing the direction with a slight move of her head.

Uncle Gerion took the lit single-candle lamp into his hand, and raising it as high as he could, he made a few steps ahead. Only now Tyrion could sight what the Elf-lady had meant, and what earlier had been hard to notice in the dimness of the library - in the midst of the highest shelf and the oval-shaped, carved plank above it he saw, built of clay and mud, birds' nest.

"The mother told the nestlings to hide," Mŷlantil was saying quietly. "We frightened her - she hid as well, right there," she pointed at some dark corner among the shelves, wherein Tyrion himself didn't see anything. He was beginning to learn, however, his eyes were nothing in comparison to the eyes of the Elf.

"They are practicing how to fly, the nestlings," Mŷlantil continued. "Their moves are still so awkward they could have hit the books earlier and dropped them."

"How do you know all of this?" Jaime looked at her doubtfully. "All I can see is an empty nest."

"Be quiet for a moment," Mŷlantil said at that, and she made a few short, strange sounds, something between peeps and whistles. Then, to Tyrion's astonishment, the dark corner among the shelves answered her, in a similar way, and they saw a small, dark blue bird with a white chest, coming out of the shadow.

The bird whistled once more, and out of the hollow of the nest appeared two swallow's younglings, which soon fearfully and wobbly flied down to their mother.

Mŷlantil smiled slightly at that sight.

"Can you talk to them?" asked Tyrion, his mismatched eyes meeting hers.

"No, no," the Elf-maid shook her head. "At least not fully - as no one has ever taught me their language, and they have not been taught mine. Still, I sometimes feel I understand birds better than many others of the Eldar, even if they are only glimpses of thoughts, not words."

"But swallows?" uncle Gerion wondered aloud. "What are they doing here? I haven't seen swallows anywhere nearby the Westerlands for years, least of all within Casterly Rock."

Mŷlantil watched the swallows carefully for a moment, then she said:

"Yet it seems they have found a good place for a nest here once the spring came."

"Spring?" uncle Gerion looked at her, raising his brows questioningly. "What spring? The last spring came to Westeros four years ago - our sweet swallow's infants would've then had a fairly long time of nesting, don't you think, my lady Elf?" he smirked.

Mŷlantil clearly got surprised. "What do you mean by four years? Do the seasons not come to your land every year?"

While uncle Gerion explained to the Elf-maid that _yes_ \- forsooth, the seasons do not come to their land every year, and told her about the rules - or the lack of such rules - of their changing here, her eyes grew round like full moons, and they shined almost fearfully.

"How is it possible? Lady Yavanna would have never agreed to that! ... It almost seems as if your part of the Great Music has been in some way broken..." she pondered.

"Who's lady Yavanna?" asked Tyrion, interrupting Mŷlantil's thoughtfulness. "Is she an Elf like you?"

"Some goddess who whirls the planet on her pretty immortal finger, sometimes chattering with birds in the meanwhile, I wager?" uncle Gerion smiled mockingly.

Mŷlantil's eyes suddenly burned fiercely at that, and Tyrion sent his uncle a half frightened, half displeased look. Why uncle Gerion had to joke about what she was saying, and peril she would get angry at them? It was so amazingly wondrous that she was now with them, but it all could be so easily shattered...

"_Foolish Aphadon_!" Mŷlantil snapped in her tongue. "Do not scorn the powers you will not ever understand!"

However, her gaze soon softened as she again became more thoughtful than wroth, and her voice was deeply astonished when she said:

"Yavanna is not a goddess in a meaning you seem to assign her, but _Balan, _Vala... Yet, you do not know anything of the Valar, do you? You know nothing of the Valar, you know nothing of Aman..."

"_Yes_, aright," said uncle Gerion, irritated. "We've already understood we know nothing of anything, so would you, perhaps, be so kind and shed some light on the matters?"

Mŷlantil nodded with a smile, and Tyrion breathed inwardly - it didn't seem she was angry any longer.

"I will gladly tell you. I will draw you a map of Arda the best I can, and show you where, by the shimmering shores of Belegaer, Aman lies," she said while her eyes glittered with some strange yearning.

Thereby, they then spent hourglasses, comparing the maps and listening to Mŷlantil's amazing tales. Although it seemed to Tyrion neither Mŷlantil, nor uncle uncle Gerion had thought of any explanation why, all of sudden, Mŷlantil's ship had appeared on the Sunset Sea the day before, as well as they didn't found any hints of former Westeros peoples' knowledge of Mŷlantil's land, and although Tyrion himself was not able to fully understand all the things the Elf-maid had been speaking of, it had truthfully been the best hours in his short life, and later he thought that nothing, or no one could possibly spoil this day.

Even if it was Cersei, whom Mŷlantil, Jaime and him later met, soon after dinnertime, as they walked down the corridor nearby the Great Hall.

Even if it was Cersei, whom Mŷlantil, Jaime and him later met, soon after dinnertime, as they walked down the corridor nearby the Great Hall.

When Cersei saw them, her eyes, as usually, shined at the sight of Jaime. She hurriedly muttered something to her maidservant, probably dismissing her, and not taking any notice of Mŷlantil and Tyrion, she came close to her twin brother.

"I was looking for you," she said a little accusingly, but smiling, and Tyrion saw as her slender fingers found the back of Jaime's hand, then they began to dance on his skin, moving over it in a strange, subtle way.

Tyrion's body tensed, and he immediately clutched to Mŷlantil's leg. The Elf-lady looked down at him with clear astonishment, yet she seemingly sensed Tyrion's anxiety - his heart hammered joyfully when she leaned down to him and held out her hands, so that he could climb up into her arms.

He quickly grabbed Mŷlantil's shoulders, and hid his face between her neck and her hair - he felt as Mŷlantil gently rubbed his back, and thought, almost happily, that Cersei could say whatever she wished now. It didn't matter any longer.

"I was busy," Tyrion heard Jaime mutters, and glancing briefly at his older brother, he noticed that Jaime actually seemed quite bewildered by the sudden meeting with their sister, and he didn't look like he knew what to say next as he peeked at Mŷlantil questioningly.

However, at last Cersei herself became interested in the Elf-maid as she gave her a long, piercing stare. A quick glimpse of deep astonishment, even fear crossed Cersei's face when she looked into Mŷlantil's jewel-like eyes, yet she soon got rid of that expression, which was replaced by a mocking smile.

"Does the dwarf have a new nursemaid?"

Unexpectedly, Mŷlantil got surprised with Cersei's question.

"What Dwarf?" she simply asked, still boring her eyes into Cersei, who must have become uncomfortable under that stare, for she snuggled herself tightly into Jaime's chest, saying both frethfully and boldly:

"Jaime, who is she?"

Flames suddenly gleamed in Mŷlantil's gaze as she answered at that - calmly, but with clear anger:

"My name is Mŷlantil, and I am a guest of Gerion Lannister, young lady. Who are you?"

For a moment, Cersei seemed frightened again, but she only snuggled even deeper into Jaime, and looked at Mŷlantil proudly:

"I'm Cersei Lannister," she said, then added, for whatever reason, "Jaime's sister."

"Yes," Mŷlantil nodded, and a slight smile returned onto her face, "I can see that... Thus, you are Tyrion's sister too."

Cersei winced, sending Tyrion a loath look. He buried his face back into Mŷlantil's neck.

"Yes, the dwarf's too."

Mŷlantil frowned, saying all of sudden, with nothing else, but curiosity in her voice, "Tyrion is not a Dwarf. Why are you calling him so?"

Her strange confidence made Tyrion look at her in utter confusion. He then moved his eyes to Jaime, who seemed equally surprised, also slightly nervous, though.

"I'm calling him a dwarf, because he _is a dwarf. _Are you a maester to question it? You for sure do not look like one," scoffed Cersei, smiling with disdain.

Much to Tyrion's astonishment, Mŷlantil laughed at that, clearly amused.

"I do not need to be a... maester to discern a Man from a Dwarf..." she suddenly stopped, possibly noticing what she had misunderstood, and looked at Cersei with curiosity.

"You mean _naugol Abonnen_... I have not known you use this word- " she hesitated again when she saw the same as Tyrion did at that moment - uncle Gerion, walking toward them, still several feet behind Jaime's and Cersei's backs, rolling his eyes and feverishly showing Mŷlantil to be quiet.

"Good day to you, Cersei," uncle Gerion said hurriedly when he stood beside them, with a faint, falsely cheerful smile on his face, "Lovely afternoon, is it not?"

He seemingly didn't care much for Cersei's answer, though, for he forthwith turned toward Mŷlantil and asked:

"Lady Mŷlantil, please forvive me for interrupting the conversation so abruptly, yet I believe we still have some urgent matters to talk about. Would you be so kind, then, to accompany me now into my solar? I would be greatly obliged."

Mŷlantil agreed, and she leaned down to put Tyrion on the floor. He reluctantly let go of her, still inwardly hoping uncle Gerion would tell him to come along with them, even if he knew it was a vain hope - uncle Gerion just couldn't allow him to come now.

After exchanging the parting courtesies, Mŷlantil and uncle Gerion walked away. Tyrion, suddenly all awkward and tense again, looked up at Jaime for help. However, his brother didn't have a moment to even briefly glance at him as Cersei demanded sneeringly, yet with a whit of bother in her voice:

"Who is _she_, Jaime?"

Tyrion's heart fluttered like mad, and despite his fear, he moved his eyes to Cersei and quickly blurted out:

"She is a parchment seller! Uncle Gerion invited her... He wante-"

"I'm _not_ asking you, little monster," Cersei barked at him, and for the nonce, Tyrion had no courage to utter another word. He moved closer to the wall and clung to it for doubtful comfort, then began to stare at the floor, inwardly begging Jaime to not betray Mŷlantil.

Amazingly, he didn't.

"She's a parchment seller," Jaime said with a careless smile, leaning his back against the wall and reaching out to play with one of Cersei's golden locks. "Uncle Gerion's guest, that's all."

"What were _you_ doing with her?" asked suspiciously Cersei, even if she seemed soothed by the affectionate moves of Jaime's fingers. "She seems either stupid, or wode. Or both."

Jaime shrugged. "She is kind. Knows a lot."

"Of parchments? Since when you're interested in parchments?"

"Not of parchments," Jaime laughed. "She was taught the swordmanship. I may want her to show me what she can."

Cersei snorted at that. "What can she that you do not?"

Jaime said nothing at that, Cersei didn't press him further, though. She only once again took Jaime's hand into her own, and rubbed it tenderly a few times, then leaning closer to him, she whispered with a sweet smile:

"I don't want to talk here. I'm waiting for you in my chamber."

As soon as she went away, Tyrion rushed toward his brother and hugged his legs tightly.

"Thank you, thank you..." he mumbled into Jaime's legging.

Jaime let out an amused chuckle. "For what?"

"You haven't told her about Mŷlantil," said Tyrion, letting go of his brother's legs and looking up at him. "You cannot tell her, Jaime!"

"Don't worry, I won't tell her."

"But you always tell her everything!" Tyrion complained, with sudden grudge he had never thought he could have been capable of toward Jaime.

Astonishingly, Jaime answered him with equal feverishness.

"_This_ I won't tell!" he snapped. However, he soon calmed down, and his expression softened as he kneeled in front of Tyrion.

"You really do not need to worry, little brother," he said, stroking Tyrion's hair. "Cersei will know nothing about Mŷlantil from me... But she still may get to know some other way - she, or the others. Uncle Gerion is right - we can't hide Mŷlantil forever. We may lie to Cersei, but we'll hardly be able to lie to Father."

Tyrion hung his head, sighing heavily. He knew that Jaime was right, yet for now, he didn't even want to think about what was going to happen once Father returned - he wished to just lengthen as much as possible moments the three of them now spent with the Elf-lady.

"I have to go, Tyrion," Jaime said, interrupting Tyrion's musings. "Do you want me to bring you to your rooms, or call for a servant?"

"No, no," Tyrion quickly shook his head. Going to his chamber was a last thing he now wished to do, he didn't want Jaime to know that, though. "I mean... I will go myself."

Jaime only nodded. As soon as he disappeared behind the corner of the castle corridor, Tyrion walked other side, then he climbed the stairs onto the upper floor where lay the chambers of uncle Gerion. Alas, he had not the same luck as the day before, and the door to Uncle's solar was now tightly closed.

No matter how much Tyrion wished to do it, he found no courage to open the door and come inside. Therefore, he waddled to a sitting place on the inner sill of the window, then clambered onto it, and hugging his bent legs with his arms, he leaned his back against cold stone of the wall. Once in his life, he felt grateful almost no one in the Rock paid much attention to him, so hopefully, he could await here unseen.

Tyrion didn't know how much time he had spent on this sill, yet the eventide had already begun, and the shadow of dusk was falling through the windows into the castle when Mŷlantil at last left uncle Gerion's solar.

She didn't notice Tyrion, though, as she began to walk the other way, so he quietly called out to her. Mŷlantil turned toward a direction whence his voice came, and went to him.

"Tyrion, what are you doing here?" she asked with astonishment, sitting down by his side. "Should you not be sleeping?"

"I don't want to sleep. I cannot anywise!" Tyrion blurted out fiercely as if, in these two sentences, he wanted to dispose of all his anger and sorrow. He soon lost his nonce boldness, though, and his cheeks got hot of embarrassment. Lowering his gaze, in the growing dimness he found a strand of Mŷlantil's dark hair, and began to fiddle with it shyly.

Mŷlantil chuckled lightly.

"I promised you a tale, did I not? Do you still want to listen to it?"

Tyrion immediately raised his head as he nodded feverishly, a wide smile appearing on his face.

"Lead me to your bed chamber then, _eilianon didthen,_" she said when she took him up into her arms, and Tyrion thought he couldn't have been happier as moments later Mŷlantil dismissed his nursemaid, explaining to her:

"I am a friend of lord Gerion Lannister. With his allowance, I will take care of little lord Tyrion this eventide."

She would _take care_ of little lord Tyrion this eventide.

She would _take care_ of little lord _Tyrion_.

She would_ take care_ of_ him._

Him. Him!

Tyrion could have jumped in his unexpected blitheness, yet instead he was just smiling wildly, hugging the Elf-maid every favorable moment and talking so much as if all of sudden he wanted to tell her all about his short life - till the moment when Mŷlantil at last laughed, saying she had not guessed he could have ever been so talkative.

Tyrion forthwith quieted down at that, his cheeks blushing.

"I'm sorry if I annoyed you..." he mumbled.

"You do not annoy me at all," Mŷlantil said, brushing the hair from his forehead. Tyrion's heart hastened, and he ascertained how much he loved when she did it. "You may speak as much as you wish."

However, Tyrion spoke no more for a while, and his heart beat even faster as he inwardly fought with himself to ask Mŷlantil the question.

"Mŷlantil?" he began eventually, afraid to meet her gaze.

"Yes?" she encouraged him while she clad him in his sleeping tunic and seated him on the bed, settling herself by his side as well.

"Do you think I'm very ugly?" Tyrion slurred so quietly that he doubted Mŷlantil could understand it. He raised his head, and now looked deeply into the Elf-maid's glittering eyes, so frightened with her possible answer that his body could have hardly moved at that moment.

It seemed Mŷlantil had heard his question, and her eyes widened in clear astonishment.

"No, Tyrion, I do not think you are ugly," she said seriously. "Never once I have thought you were ugly. You differ from children of the Afterborn I have met before, yet, truth to be told, I think that you are the sweetest of all of them."

"Really?" Tyrion smiled widely.

"Yes," Mŷlantil nodded, still very thoughtful. Then, studying his face carefully, she added as if more to herself than to him, partly in her own speech:

"I do not even understand why I have grown so fond of you. _I feel as if you reminded me of something long ago forgotten, eilianon didthen nín..._"

Tyrion didn't care he had not understood half of what she had said - the other half he had was enough to immediately snuggle into her, mumbling frantically into her neck, "I like you too, I like you so much... I love you..."

He felt as Mŷlantil kissed his forehead - oh, so gently, then she pulled him even closer to herself, and began to rub his back with tenderness Tyrion had never supposed was possible. At that moment he knew he would never want to let go of her, he doubted he would ever be able to...

"Now, the time for your tale has come," Mŷlantil said after a moment, leaning, along with Tyrion, against the pillows, and covering both of them slightly with the blanket.

"How should I begin the story of Eärendil?" she mused. "Círdan would first tell you of Fingolfin and his children, Glorfindel would praise the shining beauty of Gondolin which he misses... I will tell you at the beginning about the day when Tuor of the House of Hador, led by Voronwë, passed the gate of the Hidden Kingdom, wherein he met princess Idril Celebrindal, and they fell in love with each other..."

The Elf-lady's tale was long and beautiful, and Mŷlantil's soft voice compounded in Tyrion's ears with rustle of the peaceful sea and repeated cries of gulls, what made the tale even more wondrous. When Mŷlantil finished at last, and her gaze wandered thwart the chamber's window toward the night sky, Tyrion asked her, amazed:

"Does this star of Eärendil still shine now?"

"Yes, although only at times it may be seen," the Elf-maid answered. "In my land we call this star_ Gil-Estel_, what in the Common Speech means: Star of High Hope. It is also said among the Eldar Eärendil will leave the sky not sooner than at the end of time we know."

They both was silent for a while, until, after some thought, Tyrion sat before Mŷlantil, so that he could look into her eyes, and he unconfidently asked her one more question:

"Am I a Man like Tuor? You've called me a Man when you talked to Cersei..."

Mŷlantil nodded with a smile. "For you are a Man."

"Then... Is it possible that... That one day I would wed you as Tuor once wed Idril, and you would take me from here to Valinor, and we..." And they would be together for eternity, Tyrion finished inwardly, his heart fluttering joyfully at the amazing thought.

However, Mŷlantil only laughed at that, clearly amused, and Tyrion lowered his gaze in embarrassment.

"I just wanted to know," he mumbled quietly.

Mŷlantil stroked his hair, becoming pensive again when she said:

"Loving unions between Elves and Men very rarely happen, and even more rarely these unions end happily like the one of Idril and Tuor. Our fates differ - none of them is better, or worse, yet they differ, and we belong to our fates. Thus, Aman is not a choice, but a part of a fate. Tuor was granted with the call of Aman as the sea-longing awoke in him. Without it, even if the Valar allow you to stay in Valinor, you could become very miserable there, little Tyrion."

"Also," she added after a moment, with an amused smile now, "I believe you are far too young to yet think of these things, _eilianon didthen_. By the time you are old enough, you will for sure understand that this kind of love is too precious to be hastily gifted to Elf-maids whose blemishes you barely know... Yet now, when the moon and the stars are already gleaming on the sky, all you need is to sleep," she said at the end, once again pulling Tyrion gently into her arms.

Tyrion more than happily obeyed to bury his face back into Mŷlantil's neck, even if sleeping was the last thing he wanted.

However, as much as he wished to talk to the Elf-lady all night, being able to cherish every moment of her presence, he soon felt as his eyelids become heavy, and his thoughts begin to melt away. His foolish body that never listened to him...

"_Tiro elei lín Elbereth_," Mŷlantil whispered into his tousled hair, where she placed a soft kiss

Then the overwhelming warmth lulled Tyrion Lannister into deep sleep.

* * *

* Sindarin:

Ennebyn - Oliphaunts

Tuilinn - Swallows

Aphadon, Abonnen - a Man (one not of the Edain too)

naugol - dwarf, stunted

Tiro elei lín Elbereth - May Varda watch over thy dreams


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4: JAIME II**

Mŷlantil had already been in Casterly Rock for a week, but only this morrow Jaime had a chance to spend some time alone with her. He was happy about that time, and waited eagerly for it, at the same time he was nervous, though.

The last week had passed unnoticeably, more similar to a dream than to reality. Uncle Tygett, aunts Genna and Dorna, together with the rest of the court seemed to treat Mŷlantil like a ghost, not a living being, talking to her only when it was necessary. Still frightened, or astonished by her peculiar person, they had probably decided to wait in silence for Father's return, and his reaction to this unusual guest in the castle. Even Cersei rarely approached the Elf-lady, for sure not as often as she would have wished, considering how insistently she questioned Jaime about her.

Jaime too wasn't with Mŷlantil as often as he would have wanted. Until this morrow, it had seemed to him Lady Elf shared her time only between uncle Gerion and Tyrion while he himself, even if attended her conversations with one of them, usually felt like an useless, third wheel then.

Although Jaime doubted that uncle Gerion now believed Mŷlantil's stories much more than the day they had met, he surely was enchanted by them in his own, half-serious way. Thus, he would close himself with the Elf-lady in his chambers, where they would talk for hours, and neither Jaime, nor Tyrion was allowed to accompany them during these long, mysterious discussions.

Tyrion adored Mŷlantil madly. He hardly parted with her even for a moment, and Jaime remembered not a time when he had seen his brother this happy before. He thought, almost with jealousy, that even he himself could have never made Tyrion smile so blithely as he did in Lady Elf's presence. Mŷlantil seemed to understand Tyrion in a way Jaime could never have, that likely _no one _could ever have. She answered his thoughts and needs before he managed to voice them, at the same time treating him with genuine affection. Jaime often wished Cersei to show their little brother even a whit of such affection.

Jaime neither had Uncle's adventurous spirit, nor he shared Tyrion's longing for tender hugs, amazing stories and clever answers for clever questions, yet he too was charmed by the Elf-lady - in his own, simpler way. He thought Mŷlantil was beautiful. Not in a silly, childish manner Tyrion found her beautiful, but in a manner that made his cheeks get hot, his palms sweat slightly, and his body tense each time his gaze lingered for too long on Mŷlantil's nimble fingers dancing between her hair while she was brushing them back.

This feeling was new to him, and it matched no other he had ever experienced with women, complete with Cersei (truthfully, the only woman he had ever been interested in). Just as nothing in Jaime's life was easier than being with Cersei, it now seemed nothing was harder than being with Mŷlantil, what left that commonly shallow, dodging inner struggles boy Jaime was in an irritating state of nervous excitement, hidden behind overmuch, even for him, cockiness.

"You need to think, Jaime. Sword fighting has to do as much with your mind as with your body and spirit," Mŷlantil smiled a little as Jaime picked up his wooden sword from the ground, then adjusted its hilt angrily, even though it had already settled well in his hand.

"I _am _thinking!" he snapped. His gaze, however, shied away from Lady Elf's glittering eyes, and he once again moved his palm over the sword hilt. "You scolds me as if I were a little boy who displeased you, my lady."

_My lady. _In a way, Mŷlantil still frightened him too, although Jaime would have never admitted it openely. For whatever reason, he couldn't even bring himself to call her by her given name, what Tyrion repeatedly did without a whit of hesitation.

_Little boy. _He had never wanted to prove more that he wasn't a boy anymore - and he had never failed more. Jaime felt no one had ever treated him with greater indulgence than Mŷlantil, despite her gentle kindness.

Finally, Jaime straightened up and looked at the Elf-lady, his eyes shimmering defiantly. The early sun, that had arisen not much sooner, was shining above a grassy terrace whereon they stood, and on Mŷlantil's face, lighting an amused smile which had appeared on her lips.

She was mocking him, and Jaime wanted to snap more at her, yet he bit his tongue when suddenly, he again felt shy under her piercing stare. Sighing with anger, he carelessly leaned his wooden sword against the training pell and sat heavily on one of the rocks around, his golden hair covering his face as he took a look at his boots.

"Should I flatter you? You have your sister to do this, and many others in the forthcoming years."

Jaime answered nothing at that, still feeling Mŷlantil's amusement, hidden behind her words. Mŷlantil too put her sword away then, and sat down next to him.

"You are good, Jaime," she said simply, and seriously this time. "You are quick and strong, and fighting flows in your blood just as it matches your soul. In a few years, I will hardly be able to teach you anything new. Yet you yourself know that you are good, you can feel it each time you take a sword, and it forthwith clings to your hand as if it was nothing but another part of your body, can you not?"

When Jaime raised his head, and his eyes met Mŷlantil's, his heart hammered. For the Elf-lady was beautiful, yes - and being so close to her caused his young body to tense in this particular way which made him remember that mayhap he still wasn't fully a man, yet he for sure was not a boy anymore too, but also because for the first and only time Jaime felt she talked to him as to someone equal to her.

"You are good too, _so _good!" he said feverishly. "I've never seen anyone who would've moved like you while fighting!"

Mŷlantil smirked at his excitement.

"I am an Elf," she said. "I have deftness of the body and powers of the spirit given to me by birth you cannot possess... But still, I am a bad warrior."

"Why?" Jaime raised his brow.

Mŷlantil was silent for a moment, staring ahead in pensiveness, as if wondering what she was about to say.

"Have you yet killed, Jaime?" she asked him eventually.

Jaime shook his head to deny. "Have you?"

"Yes," answered simply Mŷlantil, still not looking at him, but over the horizon, where the blueness of the sky blurred with the waves of the sea. "Never a Man, only Orcs, but it makes no difference in the end."

Before Jaime managed to ask who the hells Orcs were, the Elf-lady continued:

"Whilst one fights, whilst one truly fights, there are - _should be_ \- two things to think of: life and death, victory and defeat. Just these two things - nothing more, nothing less. Nothing amid. When I fight, I always feel something amid."

"And what's that?" Jaime urged.

Mŷlantil turned her gaze to him, and her eyes glittered. "Doubt."

Jaime gave her a questioning look, Mŷlantil said nothing, though - she only smiled again with that pride and amusement of hers, and Jaime felt as exasperation arose in him. She again thought he didn't understand anything, was too stupid to talk to him like that...

A sudden shear of wind caused his hair to fall over his face, and he impatiently brushed them back.

Then, unexpectedly, Lady Elf started speaking again:

"Once, there was a dog.

Since birth, the dog led a dreadful life, for his master would beat him and harry, and he used him for most dangerous, nasty errands.

Yet some day, the dog was sold to a new master who came to love him dearly, and was truly good to him. Now the dog was well fed and caressed, thus he should have been happy, and he would have been, if only one thing had not disturbed him.

His new master possessed a casket in which he hid something very precious to him. The dog never knew what it was, for he was forbidden to ever look into that casket.

"My dear friend," his master was telling him, "there, in this lhittle casket I keep my greatest treasure. Thanks to it, I am who I am, I have achieved what I have achieved. Yet, to my true regret, I cannot share my treasure with you, for it is mine, and it has never brought any good to take anything else than what was given to us."

The dog neither understood his words, nor believed them, though, and he would watch, with his eyes full of desire, as his master put the key to the casket into the pocket of his mantle.

_Had I this treasure_, the dog thought, _I would be strong like my new master, I would have strength to venge on my old master, make him pay for my sorrow..._

Such thoughts would haunt him days and nights, till a fateful hour when he threw himself on his master to wrest the key to the casket. They fought for a while, yet soon the master defeated the dog. He raised his dagger above the dog's head, his hand trembled, though, and he spared the dog's life.

But as he turned away, the dog lope on his back and bit his neck, taking his life. He pulled the key out of the mantle and rushed to the casket... Yet only to find it was - empty.

Then, the dog returned to his slain master and sat by his side, and cried, for not only he understood what he had done, but also the words of his master.

Then, Eru smiled."

"If you think you've made anything clearer for me..." Jaime muttered after a moment of silence between them. "I'm not good at such stories... Why haven't you told it to uncle Gerion, or Tyrion rather than to me? Maybe they would understand..."

"Yet I have told it to you," Mŷlantil said simply, and she looked into his eyes, deeply enough to almost cause Jaime's body to flinch.

"What for?" he snapped at her, moving his gaze away from her face. "I don't understand it! This god of yours... Why did he smile?"

However, Mŷlantil said nothing at that. She only stood up and came to a parapet wall. There, resting her hands upon the wall, she again began to stare ahead, at the Sunset Sea.

Jaime felt his fleeting anger lefr him. He hesitantly rose from the rock and walked to Mŷlantil's side. He glanced up at her face, partly covered by her hair, tousled by the growing wind. The Elf-lady remained still - for a moment it seemed to Jaime she no more remembered of his presence, and a sudden, weird, ridiculous thought crossed his mind: mayhap she wasn't here with him at all, mayhap she was just another blow of the wind, wave of the sea...

"Mŷlantil," he shyly touched her arm. "What are you thinking about, my lady?"

Mŷlantil glanced at him briefly before she said in thoughtfulness:

"The wind changes, and my time comes."

"Time for what?" asked Jaime, raising his brows.

"To go home."

"Home?" Jaime daftly repeated, astonished and discomposed by what Mŷlantil had just so calmly said. "You're going to leave us?"

The Elf-lady looked at him and smiled gently. "Have you thought I would just stay? We both know I cannot."

"You could stay a little longer..."

"And who shall I be? I know close to nothing of working skins for parchments, if someone asked me, and I cannot be who I truly am as well."

"Why?" Jaime still was too baffled to realise how silly his hasty questions must have sounded, Mŷlantil seemed to notice it, though, for suddenly, she looked amused again.

"Do you believe I am an Elf, Jaime?" she asked.

Another blow of wind cut the silence between them before Jaime answered awkwardly, avoiding Mŷlantil's gaze:

"I... I think you're _brighter_ than anything else I've ever seen, or experienced... In many meanings of this... If that's what being an Elf is, then... - yes, I do... I do believe you are one."

Mŷlantil's laughed at these words.

"_Galad athan_*," she said after a while in her language, smiling to herself in thoughtfulness. "This is why I think I should not stay here any longer. I have learned much more of you - you and the Men from your land - than you have of me during the days I have spent here, and I know that although you crave brightness, you understand not what it is, thus it can lead to your ruin. Yes, you see the brightness, but you cannot foresee anything it may bring. You do not see cracks and scratches. You do not see which brightness is true, and which broken."

She spoke in riddles again. It was a habit of the Elf-lady which Jaime had been slowly adjusting to, and he had been quitting even trying to understand what hid behind her words. Nevertheless, he wondered, though, what brightness Mŷlantil really meant, for it seemed she didn't speak about herself at all, or even about the whole race of Elves, but of something completely different, what Jaime had no idea about.

However, he didn't ask what it was, not wanting to look like a fool again in front of Mŷlantil. He just sighed with irritation, and brushed a strand of golden hair off his forehead.

The Elf-lady then turned to him, and looking gently at him, she said:

"We should not grow too attached to each other, Jaime. Tyrion should not grow too attached to me."

Jaime's blood boiled at these words. Why hadn't the all-knowing Lady Elf thought about it earlier?

"He's _already _become attached!" he snapped.

He threw Mŷlantil an angry glance, then returned with rapid steps to a place where they had sat before. When he again floped over on the stone, he reached for his wooden sword and thoughtlessly cut the air with it a few times. He couldn't have said what annoyed him more - what Mŷlantil had just said, or that it finally came to him she would _really leave_. That she could do it and she would.

That, whoever she was, she didn't care for them at all. A distant, indifferent queen of ice.

Jaime heard not the Elf-lady's noiseless steps behind his back, and he almost jumped in astonishment when suddenly, after a longer while, she again sat by his side.

"Men," she said simply, almost nonchalantly, "are pretty quick to forget."

"I will never forget you," Jaime blurted out without thinking, then he realized it was perhaps the most honest, yet also the stupidest thing he had ever said.

Mŷlantil laughed. This time her laugh sounded so joyfully and youthfully, that for a moment she seemed just an ordinary girl, a few years older than Jaime, sincerely amused by naive words of a green boy.

Jaime felt he was blushing, what almost never happened to him. Angry with himself, he turned his gaze from Mŷlantil.

"But you don't know how to return," he muttered after a moment of silence, stroking the sword hilt with his fingers. "You've said you didn't understand how you came here... How will know where to sail now?"

Mŷlantil stopped smiling and buried in reverie again. She was back this faint, mysterious being on the edge of a dream and reality, whose existence Jaime wasn't sure of.

"Fools are those who think they understand a sea, that they are able to steer its waves. The only thing we can do is to just give ourselves to _its _power, let it lead us. I belong to a sea. Círdan used to say a sea bore me - I have not understood it for so long, and perhaps I still do not understand, yet I know a sea always guides me. It has its cost, though. You see, Jaime, my brightness is at the cost of a soul that never rests. A sea has yelled in me as long as I remember, loud as gulls in your haven, ever louder. It now calls me back, and I know I must return - and I _want _to return, for I miss Mithlond, but I do not know how long it will be my home there."

Jaime didn't manage to answer, for they were interrupted by a sudden, pleading, childly cry:

"Take me with you!"

Jaime had no idea when Tyrion had managed to hide unnoticeably behind one of the shooting targets, and how it had happened he hadn't seen him there earlier. He looked fleetingly at Mŷlantil, she didn't seem even a bit astonished, though.

_Yeah, but is there anything what might really astonish her? _Jaime thought with a mixture of irritation and amusement, watching as Tyrion hurried toward them as fast as he could with his short legs.

Jaime's amusement immediately went by when he sighted the seriousness and despair on his little brother's face. Concerned, Jaime again glanced at the Elf-lady, however, she didn't pay any attention to him - she only looked down and crouched, and Tyrion cuddled up to her, repeating stubbornly:

"Take me with you! Please, take me!"

Jaime sighed inwardly, and deciding not to interfere, he just watched as Mŷlantil grabbed Tyrion's shoulders to push him away from her and look into his eyes, then, brushing his hair from his forehead, she said gently, but firmly:

"I cannot take you with me, _eilianon didthen._"

Tyrion's mismatched eyes filled themselves with tears.

"Why? I don't want to stay here, I want to go with you! No matter where, just to be with you! Please, Mŷlantil..." he pleaded, snuggling again into the Elf-lady's garments.

For a short while it seemed to Jaime he saw a moment of hesitation on Mŷlantil's face, and he then thought, with astonishment and fear, she would really agree, that she would cave in to Tyrion's pleas.

However, the Elf-lady only repeated:

"I cannot take you, Tyrion."

There was something so stern in Mŷlantil's kind voice that Tyrion didn't ask her more, probably understanding it was not going to work. He still didn't let go of her, though, and was clutching tightly to her side, a new wave of tears streaming down his face.

"Here is your home," Mŷlantil continued, stroking delicately his head and back. "You belong to this place more than I have ever belonged to Mithlond. Even if I opposed the unwritten rules and took you from your father, your family, your roots... I am not going to do this, but even if, one day you would regret it, and you would blame me."

"I would never regret!" Tyrion bursted out. He jumped off from Mŷlantil to stand in front of her crouching form and looked defiantly into her eyes. "No one needs me here, no one!"

"And Jaime?" Mŷlantil smiled, looking up at Jaime.

Jaime raised his brow and answered to her smile. _It's nice anyone remembers I'm still here, _he thought, and got surprised how much of some strange, unjustified bitterness was in that thought.

"You would not miss Jaime?" Lady Elf turned to Tyrion.

"I would," Tyrion said as he raised his eyes to his brother. "I would miss a lot."

Jaime knew he would have for sure, yet he too knew Tyrion would have never missed him as much as he would soon miss the Elf-lady. Suddenly, Jaime's heart tightened, and he again felt anger toward Mŷlantil. Why had she come here, together with her stupid god who smiled without reason, and messed with their heads?

"But..." Tyrion stuttered, moving a hopeful, pleading gaze to Lady Elf. "But you will come back here, won't you? You'll come back soon?"

"Yes," Mŷlantil promised, to Jaime's astonishment. Did she lie? Did Elves lie? Did they have a habit to make promises to Men they do not intend to keep?

Jaime's heart hammered, and he strongly wished they didn't.

Mŷlantil seemed to think of something for a moment, then she reached under her tunic, and off of her neck she took a necklace with a transparent, oddly angular lump of stone or jewel. The lump looked like polished glass, or crystal, and seemed simple and insignificant in a tiny palm of the Elf-lady.

"Círdan once told me that before my parents sailed West, to Aman, they had built a ship, and my father had garnished it with a crystal. When they were setting out from Mithlond, though, the ship's broadside slightly brushed the wharf, and the crystal split unexpectedly. Then, one part of it stayed, fixed to the broadside, but the other broke away and fell onto the wharf. This is that other part," Mŷlantil said, showing the jewel to Tyrion, then she laughed slightly. "I have never believed in that story. I have always thought Círdan had just coined it, and the truth was, Glorfindel had brought the necklace to me from Imladris one day, as I still was a child."

"Either way," she continued after a moment of thoughtfulness, "this crystal for sure was once broken, and perhaps that gave him its special features. When held up to the light in an appropriate way, just like that," the Elf-lady raised the crystal and set it in her palm, so the rays of the early sun reached directly one of its squared sides, "light which falls into the crystal turns into a rainbow, and spouts through the other side with all its colors."

Mŷlantil was right, and Jaime looked in amazement as colorful flashes of light, from vivid redness to deep purple, cut the air, stretching toward the grassy ground of the practice field. He glanced at Tyrion, who had forgotten for a moment about his sorrow and tears, and was jumping with joyful laugh, trying to reach the multicolored rays and put his hand into them.

"How is it possible? Is the jewel magical?" Tyrion asked after a while, when he became weary from jumping, and slightly out of breath, he started to stare at Lady Elf, waiting impatiently for her answer.

Mŷlantil smiled.

"This is actually not the magic of Elven craftsmen, but the magic of Eru, the magic of a world he created. Sometimes, when the sunshine falls at certain blocks of glass, or crystal, or at raindrops, something happens, that makes the white light split into a few separate rays in different colors. It is said the strongest of these rays is the green one, from the middle of the rainbow, which combines in itself elements of all the other colors."

"But what exactly happens with the light in a crystal?" Tyrion asked.

"I do not know that," Mŷlantil admitted. "I would want to know, though."

She smiled to Tyrion again, and stroking his hair with her hand, she said partly in thoughtfulness, and partly with some joyful excitement:

"It is the greatest feeling in the world - to know more."

Another strong blow of wind messed up Jaime's hair. He again got them off of his face, then looked up, suddenly hearing a cry of gulls above himself. A whole flock of them flied above them, heading toward the hinterland. Jaime didn't know much of the maritime rules, but even he knew the gulls were fleeing the forthcoming storm.

All of sudden, it came to him what Mŷlantil wanted to do - to leave during a storm, just as she had come here. He moved a frightened gaze to the Elf-lady, but she paid no attention to him, still explaining a mystery of her crystal:

"This jewel has one more property, though, much more wondrous than the first. In the lands of Middle-earth it is sometimes said every Child of Ilúvatar resembles a rainbow, similar to the one that spouts out of the crystal. Many lights shine inside us, and little we know of them, as well as little we truly know of ourselves."

"This crystal," she continued, rolling the lump between her fingers, "when you look into it at the times of sorrow or doubt, will show you sometimes a streak of one of your own lights, and then you will know what way you should choose to go ahead. Yet it is never known if, or what color of the rainbow the crystal will show, and it may show each of them, except the green one. For to the green light, although we carry it inside, we have no access to."

"Why?" Tyrion asked.

"For it belongs not to us, and our hands should never reach for it."

"Like for the casket," Jaime suddenly muttered, he himself surprised that he had said it.

"What casket?" Tyrion wanted to know, but Mŷlantil didn't answer him this time. She raised her eyes at Jaime and looked at him in a way that made Jaime's heart hammer, and for a moment he was more proud of himself than ever before.

She would give the jewel to Tyrion, but to him, she had given the story.

Only to him.

Lady Elf said nothing more either of the crystal, or of the green light, or of the casket. She just took Tyrion's hand and opening his little palm, she put the necklace on it.

"It is yours," she said.

Tyrion clenched his palm around the lump of crystal with all his strenght. Suddenly, he seemed to remember why Mŷlantil was giving it to him - that it meant her leaving, and tears began to form back in his eyes. He probably wanted to say something more, yet he was interrupted by a patter of upcoming footsteps which way the Elf-lady was already looking.

Jaime turned too, and saw Jowell, uncle Gerion's servant, walking their way.

"My lady! My lords!" Jowell bowed, then said directly to Mŷlantil:

"Lord Gerion asks you to come to his chambers as soon as possible, my lady. He said you should talk forthwith."

Mŷlantil sent Jowell a questioning glance, she only answered, though:

"Yes, of course, I am coming."

Jaime looked at Jowell, raising his brow. Jaime knew him well - Jowell was not much older than him, and Uncle's trusted servant, always kind to both him and Tyrion, so he didn't hesitate to ask:

"What happened, Jowell?"

"Your father sent a messenger from the inn, my lord," Jowell answered. "He is returning to Casterly Rock sooner than was planned. He should arrive in the castle today eventide."

* * *

* Sindarin:

Galad athan - Brighter than


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5**

**BARAEGLOS I**

_Rhond*. _That was a first thought that came to Baraeglos after awakening. Came, and obsessively circled in his head when he was lying motionless on an icy flooring. Yes, the flooring was cool like ice, and he _felt _its _coldness._

_I trond, i trond, i trond._

He slowly opened his eyes and his gaze moved lazily, almost with solemnity through the black, night sky, stretching high above him, strewn with dozens of stars.

Ah, just to reach for their light and throw it to a smelting pot, like once gold in Enerdhil's workshop! To feel again tongs in the hands, and a file, and a burin, and to look as the new is born in sizzle and glitter of fire and starts to live in its deadness!

Suddenly, Baraeglos realised that his fingers were squeezing involuntarily as if they held an invisible tool, and for a moment his breathing stopped in amazement. If he had a body again, then he too had hands, _had hands_!

He feverishly rose to sit and started to examine his palms carefully, each of the long, slender fingers, one by one. Nothing had changed, everything was like before - or even long before, in his childhood and the early youth, when his fingers had still been smooth, with no scars and burns, without the least bit of that particular delicate coarseness, given to him along with the years spent in a jewelsmith workshop.

His heart was hammering as he leaped up from the flooring in the same feverish hurry.

_I trond._

He suddenly wished to see more than hands, to see everything, and he broke into a neurotic, awkward run through a maze of corridors made accidentally amid the rubble of collapsed walls, poorly lighted by the glare of the stars and a crescent of the moon. A violent wind, forcing its way through the ruins with a dull whistle, pierced him, but Baraeglos cared not at all. Just the opposite - this new feeling of coldness only reminded him more strongly of his own blood, dried for so long, and now flowing again in his veins.

He finally stopped, though, realizing his own madness. Calming his heart and thoughts down a little, he walked to a moss-covered pillar upholding a non-existent ceiling and leaned against it with his arm. His still vacant gaze brushed over the remains of former buildings that must have once made a city.

What mirror could he find here, in this pile of mouldy stone! And why would he have it?

Baraeglos moved his palm over the moist pillar, and after a moment his fingers felt a small relief, or some part of it. In a sudden surge of interest he plucked the relief of a thin layer of moss and frowned, trying to see in the darkness what it showed.

His eyes widened and his heart leaped when he recognized a silhouette of a creature carved in the stone.

_Lhûg. _

Baraeglos started to stare at the creature as if spellbound, and the longer he did it, the quicker his heart fluttered and the more vivid memories raced through his head. In the flames of fire and the clouds of smoke he heard again his own terrible scream, smothered by clash of the swords and thunder of the falling walls.

_Drego! Drego! _

Baraeglos took his eyes off the relief and laughed bitterly to himself. At last, his sharpness of mind returned to him as well, and along with it, full awareness of his situation.

_You are naught but a fool, Baraeglos Brildan, if the body could capture your memory even for a moment._

Still smiling mockingly, he again leaned against the pillar and gazed at a view expanding in front of him. He only now realized the ruins of a building wherein he stood must have been located higher than the rest of the fallen city, a panorama of which he now saw in all of its splendor. Amongst the overgrown wreckages Baraeglos could still find traces of a past glory of this strange place, which, filled with the spirit of hundreds of creatures, known and unknown to him, darting glances at him from the remnants of saved statues and columns, was nothing like the cities of Beleriand, or even the dark kingdom of Morgoth, hidden within the rocks of Thangorodrim.

What could he know, though? Middle-earth he remembered must have already not existed for thousands of years, and perhaps he himself already did not exist at all. He could have back a body of an Elf, yet his soul was now an Orc's soul, or something even more monstrous.

Suddenly, Baraeglos' sharp elven ears recognized the roar of a sea in the distance. He looked harder - yes, he ascertained that there, beyond the city ruins, for sure was the sea, blacker even than the sky, and unexpectedly, something almost close to joy overwhelmed him. A sea! When had been the last time he had heard a sea?

Baraeglos moved a little to lean against the pillar with his back, and closed his eyes, listening to the rattle of rough waves hitting the cliffs. He was standing like that for a moment while the wind brushed his face and ruffled his hair. With all his heart, he suddenly wished to come back, even for a little while, to those past times when the sea had been everything they had had.

His musings were interrupted by another sound. Unsteady, subtle pounding of steps against the flooring, almost noiseless, but more and more distinct in Baraeglos' ears.

Thudump - thump. Thudump - thump. Thudump - thump.

_We are always accompanied by some shadow, _Baraeglos thought. He opened his eyes and not looking back, he again smiled sneeringly, even wider than before.

_There he is, King of the World, Master of the fates of Arda, who could outwit powers of the Valar and escape the Void, yet __**could not**__ dispose of lameness given to him by Fingolfin. _

Baraeglos froze in silent wait, and moved not even when he already felt the presence of another body behind his back. After a moment from behind the pillar unexpectedly emerged a hand holding in its palm a golden handle of the small looking glass, which it placed in front of Baraeglos' face.

"Is this what thou have sought?"

_Quenya, _Baraeglos marvelled. Pure Quenya. Why? He had never before spoken to him in Quenya. He had used Valarin when he had been particularly pleased about something, and to Baraeglos he had talked in Sindarin, or in the Common Speech as the Elf had wrongheadedly refused to employ the Black Speech, never in Quenya, though. After all, he loathed Noldor more than he could have ever loathed Sindar. Then why now, all of a sudden?

Something completely different soon drew Baraeglos' attention, however. His gaze moved over a glass pane of the mirror, from a reflection of his own face and eyes, emerald in the darkness, to another face, gleaming as a diamond even in the gloom of night, with eyes blue as a cloudless sky. Baraeglos' heart pounded of sudden fright, and the Elf turned quickly.

A figure he saw was nothing like the rough, hideous silhouette of Morgoth he remembered. Before him now stood Morgoth full of such grace and charm that even the most gorgeous Eldar could have not possessed. His long, smooth hair, shining like true silver, fell lightly on a dark blue robe which his tall, slender figure was clad in. He was lighted by the subtle night glow, that suited him more than anything else as he himself seemed to be a part of it, along with the moon and stars.

Baraeglos was staring at him for a while as if bewitched, wondering if this was a visible form Eru had created for him, the finest of his Ainur, at the very beginning of history, in time of the Great Music, or if he had now made it anew for himself. For this was Morgoth no more, but Melkor again, in his merciless, absolute beauty a thousandfold more horrendous than Morgoth could have ever been.

Now Quenya forsooth could sound like music in his mouth.

A shadow of a bold smile appeared on Melkor's face. "Welcome back to Arda, Baraeglos Brildan."

Baraeglos still answered not. He had always talked very little, the years spent in Angband had taught him to speak even less, and now it seemed to him the millennia in the Void had deprived him completely of this ability. He took his eyes off Melkor and again leaned against the pillar, feeling as his body tensed in awaiting.

"Matter," Melkor said after a while, as he clung with his back to remains of the nearby pillar and started to watch his palms carefully. "What a spellbinding thing it is - matter. I have always valued it, for all that."

"Not for matter you returned," Baraeglos spoke at last. His own quiet voice rumbled abnormally loudly in his head, and it sounded there as if it was not him who talked, but someone entirely different, that had long been gone.

"No." Melkor's smile widened. "Not for matter."

They were both silent for a while. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted, and the wind brought to them its dull sound, which echoed amid the ruins.

"Where are we?" Baraeglos asked eventually.

Melkor did not answer immediately. He hobbled to Baraeglos' pillar and subtly, yet exceedingly precisely moved his finger over contours of the dragon relief. Baraeglos' body shivered suddenly from repeated nearness of Morgoth, he left not his place, however, just followed closely the motions of Melkor's finger with his eyes.

"Have you not yet guessed, my wise Baraeglos?" Melkor asked finally, then throwing the Elf a long glance, he intoned a made up puzzle. "_Once a home of Ungoliant, yon my dark and cursed land._"

"_Morenórë_," Baraeglos repeated with astonishment. "I thought it was only a tale, not even a legend."

"I," answered at that Melkor, "tell no legends. And naught about me is a legend."

Baraeglos looked again at the view before him, and his eyes sparkled in the darkness as after years he once more felt that most powerful and precious feeling he had ever experienced.

Hunger for knowledge.

Bliss of learning.

Morenórë! A mysterious land of Men in the far south, some of those who, as Círdan had once been telling him, at dawn of their history, soon after awakening, had given in to persuasions of Morgoth, and at the same time, a cradle of Melkor's attempts at creating, which he himself had sometimes boasted of, and Sauron had admired.

It had always seemed to Baraeglos, though, that even Sauron had never fully believed in existence of Morenórë. And now they were here for true. What was this Dark Land? What could it be at this moment in time, after all those millennia that had passed? Just a pile of ruins he was seeing?

He wished to question Morgoth about all that, yet he held back his curiosity to first ask a much more important question. "Why hither?"

Melkor walked back to the neighbouring pillar and for a moment he observed Baraeglos' profile in silence.

"Look at me!" he demanded eventually.

Baraeglos turned not forthwith. His gaze flickered over the night sky as if he wanted the light of stars to soothe his heart, that fluttered suddenly of awe and anxiety about what he would see through Morgoth's eyes.

Long before, however, he had lost any right to hope for Elbereth's care, if such care had ever been given to him. It had oft seemed to Baraeglos the Valar had not known at all of his existence, that he had indeed been only _his golden-handed treasure ed alhad a ed alnad, _as Morgoth had used to call him.

That they both had been _ed alhad a ed alnad._

And yet the stars helped him to overcome the groundless fear a little. Melkor had no reason to haunt him now with memories and swevens. He could do it just out of malice, as he had done not once in the past, but this was no time for malice, too pleased and too rapt he was with his own return to think about it. Baraeglos knew him too well to not be aware of that.

"Look!" Melkor's voice rose of impatience.

This was also no time to battle his will, which, as Baraeglos was forefeeling, might have now been even stronger than in the old days, ere throwing into the Void. Besides, Baraeglos' curiosity always won against howsoever great fear he experienced. It seemed that although millennia had passed, this too had not changed at all.

_The shadow outside and inside me, evermore and everywhere, _the Elf thought, then turned his head and gazed into Melkor's pale blue eyes.

Melkor showed him Middle-earth. Baraeglos would have not recognized it himself, but sinking into Morgoth's thought gave him understanding.

There were just tiny fragments of views, fleeting snatches of scenes, as if someone had cut life into pieces, had lost a part of them, and the rest had composed carelessly, not like it should have been. Melkor's thought too had its limits. Baraeglos saw enough, though, to not only fathom what Melkor probably wanted him to fathom, but also to make his heart rumble again in his chest as a herd of galloping horses.

A bright Elven haven glimmered at shores of one of Belegaer's bays, and a lonely figure of an Elf appeared on the wharf. His hair, lighted by last rays of the setting sun, was silvering like cobwebs when he was staring in deep pensiveness at peaceful waves of the Great Sea as if waiting for something.

_Círdan!, _screamed Baraeglos' heart. What did Círdan still do in Middle-earth, after all those millennia? Have his soul not yet yelled of thirst for Aman?

After a moment, though, Baraeglos saw another town and another Elven lord, with dark hair and grey eyes. _Eärendil's blood, _Melkor prompted him voicelessly, and the view fogged for a while as a memory of Baraeglos' own mind veiled it. He again beheld an Elf-boy with golden hair and a smile like glow of the early spring sun as he was joyfully letting his mother to chase him along the fountains in the Tower of the King.

However, Melkor's will drew him away from his own memories, and Baraeglos saw some more realms of Elves, Men and Dwarves, till eventually Morgoth's thought reached a kingdom almost as dark as Angband had once been. This was not Angband, though, and to his astonishment, Baraeglos soon recognized a spirit that ruled it.

"You intend not to aid Mairon," the Elf stated more than asked a moment later, as he had already beheld what he had been to behold and Melkor's thought had closed before him.

Melkor gazed into a thin crescent of the moon.

"I could," he said dispassionately.

_But you will not. _Baraeglos knew Morgoth well enough to be convinced he would indeed not help Sauron, for reasons the Elf could also guess.

"Yet that war is not of concern, and Mairon shall lose it," Melkor added after a while, and Baraeglos could have sworn that although he saw not Morgoth's face directly, he noticed a smile of gladsomeness on it. "He still makes the same mistakes."

_And the greatest of these mistakes is he has become almost as mighty as you once were, back in the olden days, _Baraeglos smiled inwardly. There were two reasons wherefore this war, that doubtlessly would break out soon, was so favorable for Melkor. It was giving him time and possibility to build up anew his own strenght and lessen any possible powers of Middle-earth, capable of defying him in the days to come. And it also would turn Sauron's pride into dust, making him return to Morgoth just as he should.

Kneeling.

"Whence confidence that Mairon has never sought the Dark Land after you left? That he has not found it?" Baraeglos asked after some thought. "May be that his spies will trace you here."

Melkor squinted his eyes, still staring at the moon almost in blissfulness, as if wishing to drew a part of its light for himself.

Not his light he hated.

"It may be he has sought," he answered in the same blank tone. "And it may be he has even found, yet that too is not of concern as for ages, by the will of my brother, and likely of Ilúvatar as well, the Dark Land has been beyond the reach of Middle-earth, and none of its dwellers, even Mairon, howsoever strong he would have become, owns the power to break a curse Ulmo cast on this place. From Valinor itself only my brother and Ulmo could do it, though I doubt they ever would, of their own volition, before me."

"Yet now you have already broken the curse so that we could come hither."

"I have, but just for a while. Erelong I will again close all the gateways, and Ulmo will not even realize. For this place is mine and mine only. Only I may control it fully and know its mysteries enough to use them. I have created wonders herein which of neither you, Baraeglos, nor Mairon has ever even dreamed."

Melkor looked at Baraeglos, and his eyes glittered with happiness so cruel the Elf hardly held back a shiver. However, he withstood Morgoth's gaze, then answered with a mocking smile and words he knew he would soon regret:

"Not more yours is this place than Endórë, for not out of your light this land bears."

A baleful glare which shined in Melkor's cold eyes made Baraeglos realize even more strongly what he had said had been a doubtless mistake. This was not Sauron, whom verbal swordplays had amused and who had not made greater effort than to punish in revenge for them with even more scathing speech, and that could have done little harm to Baraeglos. This was Melkor, impetuous, ruthless and more sensitive about his own weaknesses than any other being Melkor, who now walked to Baraeglos and embraced his wrists with icy palms, so the Elf's hands, as if in spite of that coldness, began burning inside as caught by flames of fire.

"I could cut off your hands for such words," Morgoth said, watching with an almost bored gaze his own fingers, that were moving delicately around Baraeglos' palms.

"But you will not," Baraeglos blurted out with pride and mockery, although he was hardly catching his breath of pain and fear. "For because of my hands I am here."

_How easily I have grown accustomed again to my body and to dreaming of using my hands again, and to quivering in worry about that dream. We truly belong to Arda completely if even years in the Void deprive us not of such dreams._

_Blessed Men, who are given a chance to finally value their souls more than their own hands._

Melkor let go of Baraeglos' wrists, as if the punishment suddenly became unimportant, and turning away from the Elf, he gazed at the sky and smiled to his own thoughts.

"Yes, because of your hands," he said quietly, almost in rapture. "And because of your mind. Make Ezellithīr for me, Baraeglos!"

Baraeglos stopped rubbing his hands to soothe the remains of pain and laughed.

"No being besides Ilúvatar, not even Varda has a power to create the Flame Imperishable, surely not any Elf. I spent years working on light, examining its deepest secrets, breaking it down into pieces, but I could _never_ make it anew, you know that. Fëanor was the mightiest of the Eldar, yet even him could do no more than catch a flake of the Trees' light, the light that is nothing in comparison to Ezellithīr."

"Yet you are not Fëanor." Melkor walked to Baraeglos, looking deeply into his eyes. "Were you only Fëanor, I would have never wanted you. You are interested not in making just any shining jewels, for creating liveless stones will never be enough for you. You want _to know. _You want to understand the deepest nature of things. _It is the greatest feeling in the world - to know more. _Are those not your words, Baraeglos Brildan?"

"A heavy price I have paid for them," Baraeglos whispered. The owl hooted again and the Elf smiled inwardly. _I used to be a swallow, proud and free, and now I hide in darkness amid owls. _"Ezellithīr means binding the blue and the yellow, ice and fire. Only Eru may freeze in His own coldness and burn in His own heat, and come out of it even more alive."

"You will bind them for me, though. Or your price will be even heavier," Melkor said.

Baraeglos listened for a while as he hobbled slowly into the darkness, till a moment the steps silenced as Morgoth probably transfigured already from his physical body.

Baraeglos closed his eyes. Perhaps if she had fled then, everything would have been different.

* * *

* Sindarin:

Rhond/ i trond - a body/the body

Lhûg - a dragon

Drego - flee

_ed alhad a ed alnad - _out of nowhere and out of nothing

Quenya:

Morenórë - the Dark Land

Endórë - Middle-earth

Valarin:

Ezellithīr - the Green light

* * *

**Thank you for reading, I do hope you enjoyed ... :)**


	6. Chapter 6

Hello :)

It's just a short, goodbye AN I've wanted to add as I'm tidying my writings up and remembered this one.

I don't think this story will ever be continued as I'm much more into writing my original tales and not very interested in fanfiction anymore, especially multi-chaptered (though I still like to read some), but I've spent some nice time creating this one, and **I wanna thank you very, very much for reading it** :) It was so nice for me to know someone enjoyed it.

Bye and thanks again :)


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